2026 Summer Conference Faculty
Andrew Bledsoe is Professor of History at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee. He is the author of Citizen-Officers: The Union and Confederate Volunteer Junior Officer Corps in the American Civil War (LSU Press, 2015) and Decisions at Franklin: The Nineteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Battle (University of Tennessee Press, 2023), as well as coeditor (with Andrew Land) of Upon the Fields of Battle: Essays on The Military History of the American Civil War (LSU Press, 2018).
Keith Bohannon is a professor history at the University of West Georgia. He is the author of numerous essays, including most recently a piece on General John Bell Hood in Caroline Janney and Kathryn Shively, eds., The Second Manassas Campaign (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2025).
Fergus M. Bordewich is the author of ten non-fiction books: CENTENNIAL: The Great Fair of 1876 and the Invention of America’s Future; KLAN WAR: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction; CONGRESS AT WAR: How Republican Reformers Fought the Civil War, Defied Lincoln, Ended Slavery, and Remade America; THE FIRST CONGRESS: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government (winner of the D.B. Hardeman Prize in American History); AMERICA’S GREAT DEBATE: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise that Preserved the Union (winner of the 2012 Los Angeles Times History Prize); WASHINGTON: The Making of the American Capital; BOUND FOR CANAAN: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America (named one of the New York Public Library’s ten best books of 2005); MY MOTHER’S GHOST: A Memoir; KILLING THE WHITE MAN’S INDIAN: Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century; and CATHAY: A Journey in Search of Old China. Mr. Bordewich is a native of New York City. He has been an independent writer, historian, and journalist since the early 1970s. In 2015, he served as chairman of the awards committee for the Frederick Douglass Book Prize given by the Gilder-Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, resistance, and Abolition, at Yale University. In 2024, he received the Underground Railroad Free Press award for Advancement of Knowledge. He is currently a member of the advisory council of scholars for the U.S. Capital Historical Society and serves in a similar role for the Thaddeus Stevens and Lydia Hamilton Smith historic site in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His articles have appeared in many national magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, Smithsonian, The Civil War Monitor, and American Heritage. His book reviews appear regularly in the Wall Street Journal. He is a frequent speaker on subjects related to nineteenth century American history. As a journalist, he reported extensively on politics, economic issues, and culture from Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. He has also worked for the United Nations and, in the 1980s, served as an advisor on modernization to the Chinese National News Agency, Xinhua. He holds degrees from the City College of New York and Columbia University. He lives in Washington, D.C. and Greensboro, NC with his wife Jean Parvin Bordewich, the president of Guilford College and a playwright.
Jake Boritt Jake Boritt is a documentary filmmaker best known for his visually driven, character-focused explorations of U.S. history. His work blends cinematic storytelling with rigorous historical research, bringing pivotal moments and influential cultural narratives to life for broad audiences. His upcoming project, The Gettysburg Book (2026), examines the story behind Michael Shaara’s seminal Civil War novel The Killer Angels. Narrated by Stephen Lang (Avatar, Gettysburg), the film interweaves the dramatic events of the Battle of Gettysburg with the fraught personal and professional journey of Shaara and the novel’s rise to iconic status in American culture. In collaboration with filmmaker Ken Burns, Boritt co-created the Gettysburg Film Festival, an annual event that showcases history on screen and pairs films with conversations featuring leading historians and American cultural figures. Festival participants have included Ken Burns, Martin Sheen, Sam Waterston, Susan Eisenhower, and Sarah Botstein, among others. Boritt directed The Gettysburg Story (2013), which aired nationally on public television. Entertainment Weekly praised the film as “a dynamic new documentary that reimagines the conflict like never before.” He also co-created a widely used companion audio tour of the Gettysburg battlefield with his father, historian Gabor Boritt, founder of the Civil War Institute; the guide has been experienced by tens of thousands of visitors. His other documentary credits include 759: Boy Scouts of Harlem, Budapest to Gettysburg, Cooking to Live, and Adams County, USA. Boritt is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University, where he studied The Writing Seminars and Film and Media Studies and captained the university’s rugby team. After two decades in New York City, Boritt returned to his childhood home along Marsh Creek with his wife, architect Heather Ross, and their three children. The historic farm once served as both an Underground Railroad stop led by Basil Biggs and a Confederate battle hospital for the brigades of Barksdale and Semmes.
James J. Broomall holds the William Binford Vest Chair in the Department of History at the University of Richmond. He is a cultural historian of the Civil War era and has published works in Commonplace, Ohio Valley History, Gettysburg Magazine, Civil War History, and Civil War Times. His co-edited with William A. Link Rethinking American Emancipation: Legacies of Slavery and the Quest for Black Freedom (Cambridge University Press, 2016), and the University of North Carolina Press published his book, Private Confederacies: The Emotional Worlds of Southern Men as Citizens and Soldiers, in 2019. Dr. Broomall has completed three major historic resource studies for National Park Service sites and frequently conducts guided tours of historic sites and Civil War-era battlefields. He directed the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War at Shepherd University, in West Virginia, for nearly a decade and previously served on the faculty of the University of North Florida and Virginia Tech.
Elizabeth Anderson Comer is an archaeologist who serves as the president of the Catoctin Furnace Historical Society, Inc. and president of EAC/Archaeology, Inc. Ms. Comer has successfully managed more than 450 archival and archaeological survey, testing and excavation projects and historic architectural survey, evaluation and recordation. Ms. Comer graduated from Hood College with a B.A. in history and political science, and received her master’s degree from the University of Kansas in anthropology with a specialization in archaeology. She is ABD at the University of Maryland, currently completing her Ph.D. in American Studies with a concentration in archaeology. She has also studied at the University of London. As City Archaeologist for the City of Baltimore, Maryland (1983-1987) she directed and managed the archaeological department for the city and specialized in complex urban, industrial and waterfront projects. As secretary and now president of the Catoctin Furnace Historical Society, Inc., Ms. Comer has successfully pursued bond bills, grant monies, private donations, and other funding to restore the 1810 log collier’s house, the 1821 stone Forgeman’s house, and the Museum of the Ironworker; the construction of the African-American Cemetery Interpretive Trail and the Iron Trail; the purchase and establishment of the ca. 1820 Miller House as the innovative “Furnace Fellows” headquarters; the restoration of the historic Carty-Miller dwelling and the F.W. Fraley General Merchandise store; the acquisition of the 1.921 African American cemetery; stabilization of the Ironmaster’s Mansion ruin, innovative digital reconstructions of multiple buildings including the quarters for the enslaved and the Ironmaster’s Mansion; established a vibrant descendants group; spearheaded the 2021 Smithsonian Channel documentary Forged in Slavery; and served as co-principal investigator for the bio archaeological research about the Catoctin Furnace population with the Smithsonian Institution, Harvard University’s Reich Laboratory, and 23andMe. She edited "Catoctin Furnace: Portrait of an Iron-Making Village," published by History Press in 2013, a meticulously researched and extensively referenced social, economic and technical history of Catoctin Furnace. In 2015 The Catoctin Furnace Historical Society was awarded a Maryland Historical Trust/Maryland Heritage Areas Authority Non-Capital Grant to fund a two-part research and tourism project aimed at increasing public awareness of the role of enslaved African Americans in the iron industry. Ms. Comer serves as the co-principal investigator for the joint Smithsonian Institution/Catoctin Furnace Historical Society, Inc. research project focusing on the remains of thirty-five individuals from the Catoctin Furnace slave cemetery. There is no descendent community that traces its roots to these early workers and this project includes renewed efforts to learn more about these poorly documented early laborers, and to connect the past with the present through increased heritage tourism to the site. The project’s first phase involved updated forensic analyses of the human remains from the cemetery including reassessments of demography and pathology, carbon and nitrogen stable isotope studies, heavy metals analysis, and comparison to Mid-Atlantic historic and anatomical reference collections. DNA analysis, a final and critical component of the study, is providing data on ancestral origins of individuals in the cemetery and determining their relatedness to one another. Partnering with the Reich Laboratory of Medical and Population Genetics at Harvard University to conduct ancient DNA analysis (aDNA) on bone or tooth samples collected from a selected subset of 28 individuals, collaboration between the Smithsonian, Reich Laboratory and 23andMe, Inc., is resulting in the ancient DNA from the Catoctin remains being cross-referenced with contemporary DNA sequences housed in worldwide databases. This research is determining the relationship between these historic remains and living populations, reconnecting the descendants of skilled enslaved ironworkers to their lost legacy at Catoctin Furnace. Ms. Comer has made more than 75 presentations to local, regional and national groups about the ongoing research at Catoctin Furnace including XRF, LIDAR, archaeology, oral history, historic clothing research, and historic foodways.
Rich Condon is a public historian and Park Ranger whose research is focused on the military and cultural history of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. For over a decade he has held positions with a multitude of sites and organizations including The Battle of Franklin Trust, Flight 93 National Memorial, Catoctin Mountain Park, and the newly established Reconstruction Era National Historical Park. Rich has published articles in Civil War Times Magazine, The Civil War Monitor, as well as for The American Battlefield Trust, and manages the Civil War Pittsburgh online blog. He graduated from Shepherd University with a B.A. in Public History and is currently pursuing an M.A. in American History through Gettysburg College.
Michael DeGruccio is an associate professor of History at Saint Peter's University, a liberal arts school in the heart of Jersey City. His research interests focus on gender, war, religion, material culture, and failure and moral problems in history, especially those that lead to examining the human condition. De Gruccio believes that the incredibly rich sources from the Civil War still have much to reveal about social and cultural history in nineteenth-century America. His deep interest in the material culture of the war is reflected in his essay, “Letting the War Slip Through Our Hands,” in Stephen Berry’s edited volume, Weirding the War: Stories from the Civil War’s Ragged Edges (University of Georgia Press, 2011). His recent book, The Strange and Tragic Wounds of George Cole's America, explores the shattered world of a veteran who returned from war and killed the man who had sex with (perhaps raped) the veteran's wife. At its heart, Strange and Tragic Wounds is a story about the maddening search for recognition through merit and the belief that men could control their own fate.
Doug Douds, of Stroudsburg, PA, is a retired Marine Colonel and faculty member at the U.S. Army War College where he directs the Advanced Strategic Art Program. He has served as a strategist and senior speechwriter for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He commanded a Marine F/A-18 squadron in Iraq. As pilot, he accrued over 3,000 flight hours, 340 aircraft carrier traps, and 135 combat missions over Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq and is a graduate of the Navy Fighter Weapons School (Top Gun). Douds received two Bachelors of Arts degrees in political science and history from Wake Forest University, a Master of Strategic Studies degree from the Army War College, and holds a Doctorate in Military History from Leeds University, England. He has appeared as a subject matter expert on History Channel and Netflix documentaries Grant, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, The Great War, FDR, D-Day, and Churchill at War. He is also a Licensed Battlefield Guide at Gettysburg where he lives with his wife.
Bert Dunkerly is a public historian and author who has worked at a dozen historic sites, including Colonial, Revolutionary War, and Civil War sites. He likes to look how landscapes affect troop movements and combat, as well as how historic sites are preserved and commemorated. His newest book, The Lower Battlefield of Antietam, discusses the final phase of the battle and analyzes terrain and the chaos of combat in the engagement's final hours.
Codie Eash serves as Director of Education and Interpretation at Seminary Ridge Museum and Education Center in Gettysburg, where he has served several roles as a member of the staff since 2012. He earned his undergraduate degree in Communication/Journalism at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania in 2014, and began working on a Master’s in American History at Gettysburg College in 2024. In addition to museum tours and interpretation, Codie lectures for American Battlefield Trust conferences, National Park Service sites, Civil War roundtables, libraries, and other community organizations. He is a founding contributor to Pennsylvania in the Civil War, writes book reviews for Civil War Monitor and articles for W. Britain’s The Standard, and serves as a member on the Gettysburg Magazine editorial board.
Susan Eisenhower is an Expert in Residence at the Eisenhower Institute at Gettysburg College, where she holds a yearlong seminar called, Strategy and Leadership in Transformational Times. She is also an award-winning speaker and writer. How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower’s Biggest Decisions-- her most recent of five books, has received acclaim nationally and internationally. Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, wrote, How Ike Led “brings one of America’s most remarkable public figures into lasting focus,” She has served on many boards and advisory boards, including the Board of Visitors at the Army War College in Carlisle, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She currently sits on the MIT Energy Initiative Advisory Board. Best known for her work in foreign policy, she spent eight years as a member of the National Academy of Sciences Standing Committee on International Security and Arms Control and NASA’s Advisory Council. In addition, she was a member of three nuclear energy related blue-ribbon commissions for the Department of Energy. DOE awarded her the Distinguished Service Award for her work after her two-term stint as co-chairman of the Secretary of Energy’s Nuclear Energy Advisory Council.
Stephen Evangelista is an alumnus of Providence College, where he graduated valedictorian, and also attended the Harvard Extension School in Boston, Massachusetts. A dedicated living historian, he is an active member of Battery B First Rhode Island Light Artillery, serving as one of its corporate officers, and is also a member of the United States Field Artillery Association. Stephen is a federal executive in the United States government, serving as the Chief of Digital Services at the Social Security Administration, and is a distinguished member of the United States Senior Executive Service Corps since 2013. In 2021, Stephen published his first book, Our Story: The Lives and Legacy of Those Who Served in Battery B First Rhode Island Light Artillery. The Gettysburg National Park Service selected it as part of the permanent collection at the Gettysburg National Park Library and Research Center. The book has also received widespread acclaim from organizations including the Rhode Island Publications Society, the Adams County Historical Society, the Heritage Harbor Foundation, the Army War College, the United States Army Heritage and Education Center, and the Rupp House History Center in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It has also been featured in the Civil War Times and promoted through various television, radio, and podcast programs. Stephen’s second book, Forever Silenced: The Story of the Gettysburg Gun was published in 2024. It has been featured on Addressing Gettysburg and added to the permanent collections at both the Gettysburg National Park Library and Research Center and the Adams County Historical Society Dr. Charles H. Glatfelter Research Room and Archives. The book has also been shortlisted for the prestigious Gettysburg Bachelder-Coddington Award. In November 2025, Stephen most recently published his third book, No Sacrifice Too Great: The Letters and Diary of Sergeant Albert Aaron Straight, which brings to life the remarkable story of Sergeant Straight, who commanded the famed Gettysburg Gun on July 3,1863. Stephen’s books have enjoyed widespread success with sales both nationally and internationally, including Canada, France, Italy, and Australia. Throughout his career, Stephen has earned numerous awards, including the Honorable Order of Saint Barbara medal for selfless service, Federal Innovator of the Year, and the prestigious Presidential Rank Award, the highest award a civilian federal executive can receive. A dedicated philanthropist, Stephen donates all the proceeds from his books to support educational programs for the modern-day Battery B First Rhode Island Light Artillery, and to further support the study of the American Civil War. In addition to his federal service and literary accomplishments, Stephen is a multidisciplinary musician, singer, and songwriter. Stephen’s albums North of Now and Elements are featured on Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, and Amazon. His original musical composition Farewell Dachau is part of the permanent collection at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. A native Rhode Islander, Stephen resides in Maryland with his wife and two children.
Zachery A. Fry is an associate professor of military history at the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the author of A Republic in the Ranks: Loyalty and Dissent in the Army of the Potomac (University of North Carolina Press, 2020). He taught history previously at the U.S. Military Academy West Point. Fry's research focuses on politics in Civil War armies, and his work has received the Coffman Prize from the Society for Military History, the Hay-Nicolay Prize from the Abraham Lincoln Institute / Abraham Lincoln Association, and the Hubbell Prize from Civil War History.
Dennis E. Frye is Chief Historian Emeritus of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. A native of the Harpers Ferry/Antietam Battlefield locale, Dennis has thrived for 40 years as a public historian and as an acclaimed expert on John Brown and the First Invasion of the North. Dennis is renowned for extolling the unconventional, challenging accepted precepts and provoking novel thinking in Civil War history. He has authored 129 articles and 11 books, with his latest publications: Antietam Shadows: Mystery, Myth & Machination and Confluence: Harpers Ferry as Destiny. His ground-breaking study Harpers Ferry Under Fire won the best-book-of-the-year award from national park cooperating associations.
Lesley J. Gordon earned her BA with High Honors from the College of William and Mary, and her MA and PhD in American History from the University of Georgia. Since 2016, she has been the Charles G. Summersell Chair of Southern History at the University of Alabama. She is the author of three monographs: General George E. Pickett in Life and Legend (University of North Carolina Press, 1998); A Broken Regiment: The 16th Connecticut’s Civil War (Louisiana State University Press, 2014); and most recently, Dread Danger: Combat and Courage in the American Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2025), which was a finalist for the 2025 Gilder-Lehrman Lincoln Prize. She has also co-edited four volumes of essays and authored multiple book chapters, articles, and book reviews. Professor Gordon served as editor of the academic journal Civil War History (2010-2015), and President of the Society of Civil War History (2022-2024); as well as the chair of the Editorial Board for the University of Alabama Press (2022-present). During the 2024-2025 academic year, she was the Charles Boal Ewing Chair in Military History at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
Michael D. Hattem is a historian on early America, the American Revolution, and historical memory. He is the Associate Director of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute and teaches online graduate courses for Eastern Washington University. He earned his Ph.D. in History from Yale University, and he is the author of Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution (Yale University Press, 2020). His work has been featured in The New York Times, TIME magazine, The Smithsonian Magazine, the Washington Post, as well as many other mainstream media publications and outlets. Hattem has served as a historical consultant or contributor for a number of projects and organizations, curated historical exhibitions, appeared in television documentaries, and authenticated and written catalogue essays for historical document auctions. For more information, visit mdhattem.com.
John S. Heiser is a native of Raleigh, North Carolina, and attended Western Carolina University from which he graduated in 1978 with a degree in American History. He began his career with the National Park Service in 1976 as a seasonal employee at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park then transferred to Gettysburg National Military Park in 1980, where he held positions in several of the park’s divisions including the Division of Interpretation and Visitor Services, the Chief Historian’s Office and the Structures Preservation Division in park maintenance. In 1997, he returned to the Division of Visitor Services as a historian, where he developed the first park web site for Gettysburg National Military Park, provided research assistance to park staff and visitors, and managed the park’s research library. He presented annual battle walk programs on different aspects of the battle and campaign and authored several works on soldier’s experiences at Gettysburg until his retirement in 2020. He is probably best known as a mapmaker for numerous Civil War publications, including Gettysburg Magazine. In 1997, he was the appointed historian of The Polar Bear Association of World War II, the organization of veterans of the 339th Infantry, 85th Infantry Division, the unit in which his father served during World War II, until the Association disbanded in 2009. He remains active with several organizations related to United States culture and military history.He and his wife Carmen reside near Gettysburg with Annabelle, their very happy Scottish Terrier. They enjoy antiques, road cycling, music, and while he faithfully follows the trials and tribulations of the Baltimore Orioles Baseball Team, his wife prefers the Pittsburgh Pirates.
James Hessler is an historian, author, and Licensed Battlefield Guide at Gettysburg National Military Park, where he has been interpreting the battle since 2003. He is the author or co-author of four books on the Gettysburg Campaign: Sickles at Gettysburg (2009), Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg (2015), Gettysburg’s Peach Orchard (2019), and his most recent release, The First Day at Gettysburg (2025). His work has earned several distinguished book awards, and he has also published articles in respected outlets such as Gettysburg Magazine. Beyond his publications, Hessler co-created and hosts the popular Battle of Gettysburg Podcast, reaching a global audience of history enthusiasts. He has appeared as a public historian in major media such as the History Channel, NPR, Travel Channel, PCN-TV, and in programs and content development with the American Battlefield Trust. Hessler is a frequent speaker for national and regional historical organizations. His willingness to tackle controversial subjects continues to spark discussion and deepen understanding of Gettysburg’s enduring story. Besides Gettysburg, Hessler has led battlefield tours at numerous sites across the country. He currently serves in a board or advisory capacity for Gettysburg History (Adams County Historical Society), Gettysburg Museum of History, and the Little Bighorn Associates.
Molly Hutchins was raised in Prairie Grove, Arkansas, a community deeply rooted in Civil War history. She has dedicated her career to preserving and interpreting the region’s past, with experience at several northwest Arkansas museums, including the Washington County Historical Society, the Arkansas Air and Military Museum, Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park, and the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History. At the age of sixteen, Molly became a founding member of the Prairie Grove Historical Society where she served 2 terms as Vice-President of the organization. She also oversaw the opening of the Prairie Grove Heritage Museum where she served as curator and operational director. In 2022, Molly joined the Oklahoma Historical Society as a Historical Interpreter at Hunter’s Home, Oklahoma’s only remaining antebellum plantation home. Her passion is sharing the stories of people who have been underrepresented or misrepresented in history, fostering a more inclusive understanding of the past. This passion led her to Honey Springs Battlefield, the site of the largest civil war battle fought in Indian Territory, where she became director in 2024.
Ian Isherwood is Associate Professor of War and Memory Studies at Gettysburg College and Director of the Civil War Institute. He is a 2000 graduate of Gettysburg College. Most of his scholarly work considers the experience of war and representation in era of the two world wars, but he is also deeply interested in connections between the American Civil War and broader concepts of historical memory. Isherwood is the author of Remembering the Great War (Bloomsbury, 2017) and The Battalion: Citizen Soldiers at War on the Western Front (Pen & Sword, 2024. Winner of the Arline Custer Award), and co-editor of Serpents of War (Kansas, 2023) with Steve Trout. He is currently working on a book concerning the politics of commemoration from the Civil War to the Global War on Terror tentatively entitled Remembering America’s Wars.
Jonathan S. Jones is an assistant professor of history at James Madison University. He is the author of Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America’s First Opioid Crisis, published in 2025 by UNC Press. Jones’s research on Civil War medicine and veterans has appeared in The Journal of the Civil War Era, North Carolina Historical Review, the Washington Post, NPR, BBC, HISTORY, and other outlets. Jones received his PhD from Binghamton University in 2020. In 2020-21, he was a Postdoctoral Scholar at Penn State’s George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center and from 2021-23 he was an assistant professor of history at Virginia Military Institute.
Brian Kennell is a Gettysburg native and the ninth superintendent in the history of Evergreen Cemetery. At the age of thirteen, Kennell moved into the historic Evergreen Cemetery Gatehouse in 1976 and has lived there as an adult since 1990. He has been employed by the cemetery association since 1978 and succeeded his father, Arthur Kennell, as superintendent in 1991. He has served as president of both Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Adams County and the Gettysburg Civil War Women’s Memorial Association. He is the author of the book Beyond The Gatehouse: Gettysburg's Evergreen Cemetery and recently produced the children’s book Evergreen: A Gettysburg Tale. As a singer/songwriter/producer, Kennell has performed and recorded for over 30 years and has worked with Grammy-winning artists and notable musicians while recording/producing in Nashville since 2009. His future projects include a revised Beyond the Gatehouse book (2026) and documentary on Evergreen Cemetery’s history.
Michelle A. Krowl is the Civil War and Reconstruction specialist in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress. She received a B.A. in History from the University of California, Riverside, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of several articles and books on topics relating to the Civil War, as well as Quantico, Virginia and the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. She has worked as a library assistant at the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., an assistant professor at Northern Virginia Community College, and as a research assistant for historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Mike Kwolek serves as the Collections Manager & Exhibits Specialist for the Gettysburg Foundation, working in partnership with Gettysburg National Military Park in their Museum Services Department. In this multifaceted role, he designs, plans, and installs exhibitions; manages artifacts both on display and in storage; provides collections management support to the Park’s curator; and curates the Gettysburg Foundation’s collection, which primarily includes artifacts from the Civil War Museum of Philadelphia. A native of Scranton, Pennsylvania, Mike earned a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Scranton. He later pursued graduate studies at Penn State, where he was accepted into the Master of Arts program in American Studies and completed a graduate certificate in Heritage and Museum Practices. Outside of his professional work, Mike is an active member of the Liberty Rifles, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization dedicated to the accurate portrayal of the common soldiers and civilians of the American Civil War.
Andrew F. Lang is an associate professor of history at Mississippi State University. His most recent book, A Contest of Civilizations: Exposing the Crisis of American Exceptionalism in the Civil War Era (UNC Press, 2021), listed as finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize. A recipient of the Society of Civil War Historians' Tom Watson Brown Book Award, he is now writing on Abraham Lincoln and the ancient virtue of gratitude.
Andrew Lawler is a journalist and author who has written about history, science, religion, and politics from dozens of countries. He is author of several books, including A Perfect Frenzy: A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis That Spurred the American Revolution, the prize-winning Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City, and the national bestseller The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Andrew’s byline has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, Smithsonian, The Atlantic, and many other publications. He is a contributing writer for Science and contributing editor for Archaeology, as well as a National Geographic Explorer and a Pulitzer Center grantee. His work has won a number of journalism awards, and appeared several times in The Best of Science and Nature Writing.
Ashley Whitehead Luskey is the Assistant Director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College, where she teaches courses in the American Civil War, material culture, and Public History; works with Gettysburg College students on a variety of original research-based Civil War and public history projects; coordinates the annual CWI summer conference; and gives tours of the battlefield to visitors. She also sits on the Board of the Lincoln Fellowship of Pennsylvania. Ashley received her B.A. in History from the College of William and Mary, and holds both an M.A. in History, with a concentration in Public History, and a Ph.D in nineteenth-century American history from West Virginia University. Her academic interests focus on the long Civil War era, Southern history, cultural history, public history, and the intersection of history & memory. Prior to her arrival at CWI, Dr. Luskey worked for ten years with the National Park Service, including eight years as a park ranger and historian at Richmond National Battlefield Park. She has delivered numerous interpretive tours, lectures, and scholarly papers at educational institutions and public venues across the country, and has written articles on a variety of Civil War and public history-related topics for various magazines, journals, and blogs. She is the co-author of “From Women’s History to Gender History: Revamping Interpretation at Richmond National Battlefield Park,” which was published in the June 2016 issue of Civil War History. She is currently revising a manuscript tentatively entitled The Last Confederate Christmas: Leading Ladies, Social Politics, and Power in the Confederate Capital for publication.
Peter Miele is Senior Project Leader at Susquehanna National Heritage Area, directing the development of the Susquehanna Discovery Center & Heritage Park in Wrightsville, PA, and an adjunct faculty member at York College of Pennsylvania. Previously, Miele worked at Seminary Ridge Museum & Education Center in Gettysburg for more than eleven years, including four years as President & Executive Director. He earned his BA in History and Secondary Education from Ramapo College of New Jersey, and an MA in Applied History from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. His scholarship has appeared in Pennsylvania History and Gettysburg Magazine. Currently a student in the Ph.D. program in American Studies at Penn State, Harrisburg, he is working on a dissertation that examines Gettysburg’s Eternal Light Peace Memorial in history, memory, and myth.
Nicole A. Moore is a public historian and consultant with over a decade of museum experience, including interpreting the lives of the enslaved. As a consultant, she works to bridge the gap between first and third person interpretation for all age groups, facilitating workshops and training sessions at historic sites across the country, while assisting historic sites with the development and implementation of interpretive plans to improve and enhance visitor learning and engagement. In her role as Senior Director of Education at the National Center for Civil Rights, Nicole leads a multi-year expansion of educational content developed by and for The Center focused on civil and human rights history from the era of Reconstruction to the present, and serves as the in-house historian. Active in the field, she is the incoming President of the National Council on Public History, and serves on the board of directors for the Slave Dwelling Project, the Georgia Council for History Education and Old North Illuminated. A published author, she has chapters in Interpreting Slavery at Museums and Historic Sites (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014) and Interpreting the Civil War for Museums and Historic Sites (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017), as well as Radical Roots: Public History and a Tradition of Social Justice Activism (Amherst College Press, 2021) and the forthcoming third edition of The Museum Educator's Manual (Bloomsbury, 2026). Nicole is a featured story in Michele Norris' Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity (Simon & Schuster, 2024). Nicole received her BA in Psychology, and MA in History with a concentration in Public History from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Christopher Oakley
Timothy J. Orr is Associate Professor of Military History at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. He received his bachelor’s degree at Gettysburg College and his Ph.D. at the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at the Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of several essays about the Army of the Potomac, and also the editor of Last to Leave the Field: The Life and Letters of First Sergeant Ambrose Henry Hayward (2011), the author of the three-volume Battle of Gettysburg Series by Osprey Publishing (2022-2024), and the co-author of the national bestseller Never Call Me a Hero: A Legendary American Dive-Bomber Pilot Remembers the Battle of Midway (2017). His current book project is entitled, No Routine Flights: U.S. Navy Dive-Bomber Pilot Donald Kirkpatrick, Jr. and the Pacific War. For eight years, Dr. Orr worked as a seasonal ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park. He has also appeared on several television shows: Who Do You Think You Are? (TLC), Battle of Midway: The True Story (Smithsonian Channel), The Greatest Events of World War II in Colour (Netflix), and Attack on Pearl Harbor: Minute by Minute (Netflix).
Kevin Pawlak is a Historic Site Manager for the Prince William County Office of Historic Preservation. He is also a certified battlefield guide at Antietam National Battlefield and Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. Kevin graduated from Shepherd University with a History degree and a concentration in Civil War and 19th-Century America. He serves on the board of directors of the Save Historic Antietam Foundation, the Shepherdstown Battlefield Preservation Association, and the Antietam Institute, where he edits The Antietam Journal. He is the author or editor of eight books about the American Civil War.
Jared Peatman is a graduate of Gettysburg College with a Master’s degree from Virginia Tech and a Ph.D. from Texas A&M. He is the author of the recently leased A Hell of a Regiment: To Gettysburg and Beyond with the Twentieth Maine, which was published by Stackpole Books. He is also the author of The Long Shadow of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, a project for which he was named the Organization of American Historians and Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission Doctoral Fellow and in 2012 received the Hay-Nicolay Dissertation Prize for the best work on Abraham Lincoln or the Civil War. In his day job, Jared provides training events that use history as a metaphor to examine current leadership and performance challenges. He is the founder and president of Four Score Consulting and a senior fellow at the George Washington University Center for Excellence in Public Leadership. You can read more about his programs at www.historyleadership.com
Michael Rupert is a Licensed Battlefield Guide at Gettysburg. He has worked in automotive service and management south of Pittsburgh, PA for almost 40 years. The past had become the present while on a family trip to the Gettysburg battlefield in 2001. Since then, countless seminars, lectures, conferences, and battle walks made “it as real as something that happened last week”. Mike describes himself as a self-taught student with an unending quest to keep the memory alive for future generations. In 2017, Mike contributed essays for Jay Jorgensen's book TOP TEN AT GETTYSBURG, and in 2018, he successfully completed all testing to become a Licensed Battlefield Guide at Gettysburg National Military Park. As an LBG, he leads all types of battlefield tours – both large and small groups, including specialty tours. Mike also recently joined the faculty of two Gettysburg Battlefield Leadership Development companies. He has appeared multiple times on the Addressing Gettysburg podcast and has produced Gettysburg Battle walks for the Association of Licensed Battlefield Guides since 2019. Michael was born and raised in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA. Married for 36 years to his wife, Susan, he has two grown children. In the colder months, he lives in his hometown of Pittsburgh, PA and resides in Littlestown, PA during the Guide season.
Jeff Shaara is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of twenty historical novels that deal with characters from the American Revolution through the Korean War. His Civil War novel “Gods and Generals” was the basis for the major motion picture of the same name. His latest novel, “The Shadow of War”, released May, 2024, explores the events and the significant characters during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He has just completed a novel told through the eyes of Abraham Lincoln, which is due out next year. Jeff and actor Stephen Lang are collaborating now on a screenplay and novel based on the 1913 Gettysburg 50th Anniversary. Jeff lives in Frederick, Maryland.
Dana B. Shoaf joined the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in November 2023 after 15 years as the editor of Civil War Times magazine. At the Museum, he is leading the redesign of the Museum’s galleries. His popular “Medical Minute” series can be seen on YouTube along with other videos and talks representing the NMCWM. Dana is a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars and on podcasts, has appeared on National Public Radio and C-Span. He has been invited to serve as a consultant for projects at the National Archives, the Smithsonian Institution, the Washington Post, and the National Park Service. He has led battlefield tours, in fair and foul weather, for CWI, and other organizations and institutes. He has spent his life pursuing his historical passions, and he is an avid student and collector of Civil War and 19th-century occupational photography. Dana and his wife, Heidi, restored and sold an 1830s stone house, and they are currently restoring another stone house (aka Money Pit!) built in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, where they reside with indulged cats and dogs
Dean Shultz is a lifelong resident of Adams County whose ancestors lived here during the Battle of Gettysburg. He has been studying the Battle of Gettysburg and the history of the Adams County area for many years. He is very active in the preservation of the rural lands of Adams County and the Gettysburg area. He was one of the principal founders of the Land Conservancy of Adams County (LCAC) and was their founding President. The LCAC has now preserved over 14,000 acres of land in Adams County. Approximately 1500 of those preserved acres are within or near the Gettysburg National Military Park Boundary. Dean also served on the Gettysburg National Military Park Advisory Commission. He has assisted the American Battlefield Trust in their preservation efforts at Gettysburg and in 2003, he received from the Civil War Preservation Trust (now American Battlefield Trust) the Preservationist of the Year award, and in 2018 received a Preservation award from the Land Conservancy of Adams County. Dean’s farm surrounds Neill Avenue (the Lost Avenue), the last Gettysburg National Military Park (GNMP) Avenue remaining in its same grass-covered appearance as when dedicated in the 1880's. The Avenue marks the far right of the Infantry of the Army of the Potomac during the Battle of Gettysburg. He is known among many historians as the "Keeper of the Lost Avenue", maintains it in its pristine condition and occasionally gives tours of this area. The Association of Licensed Battlefield Guides bestowed on him the title "Honorary Licensed Battlefield Guide" in 2015. One of only 4 people to receive this honor in its 110 years of existence.
James Taub is the Associate Curator at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a public historian, he focuses on the military history of the 18th century, and the First World War. Originally from Michigan, James received his MLitt from the University of Glasgow, and his B.A. from Dickinson College. He worked as the Education Coordinator for the United States WWI Centennial Commission, and as the History and Engagement Specialist at the National WWI Museum and Memorial. His recent publications include the Oxford University Press's Bibliography on the military history of France in World War One, and a chapter in The Darkest Year: The British Army on the Western Front 1917 (Helion & Company, 2023). James has also contributed journal articles and book reviews to The Public Historian and the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research.
Jon Tracey is a public historian focused on historic preservation, memory, and veteran life in the Civil War era. A 2019 graduate of Gettysburg College, he also holds an MA from West Virginia University. He is currently the Historian/Cultural Resource Program Manager for the NPS at Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park.
Mary Turk-Meena has been a Licensed Battlefield Guide at Gettysburg National Military Park since 2016. As a Guide she provides individualized tours to many types of visitors, including families, the die-hard individual requesting 3 days of full immersion and many leadership training groups, from military to federal and state governmental agencies and corporate groups.
Mary is a retired attorney. She practiced law for 35 years in international law and consulting firms. Her practice focused on employer-sponsored employee benefit plans – retirement, health care and executive compensation – largely for Fortune 100 companies headquartered in the United States, Europe and Asia. She also worked with many clients in connection with corporate transactions and corporate reorganizations. Mary was recognized for several years by colleagues and clients in the publication Best Lawyers in America and was a frequent speaker and writer for legal publications. Mary also managed a practice group of 80 lawyers in various offices around the world as part of the law firm leadership group. Mary received her undergraduate degree in music performance from Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of Music and her law degree from Temple University. When not in Gettysburg, Mary returns to her home in Charlotte, NC or travels with her husband, an always-on-the-road opera conductor. Mary and her husband have two adult daughters, one in London and the other in Charlotte.
Daniel Vermilya is an historian and author who works as a Park Ranger at Eisenhower National Historic Site. He has worked for the National Park Service for over fifteen years, including time at Antietam National Battlefield, Monocacy National Battlefield, and Gettysburg National Military Park. He lives in Gettysburg, PA, with his wife and two sons.
Peter Vermilyea teaches history at Housatonic Valley Regional High School in Falls Village, CT, and for the University of Connecticut. An award winning teacher and historian, he is the author or editor of six books, including Litchfield County and the Civil War (2024), a microhistory of mobilization in one Northern community. A graduate of Gettysburg College, he has served as director of the student or teacher scholarship program for the Civil War Institute since 1995.
Sarah Jones Weicksel is the executive director of the American Historical Association and a historian and material culture scholar of the Civil War era. Her book, A Nation Unraveled: Clothing, Culture, and Violence in the American Civil War Era (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2026), is an object-based history that explores how making, wearing, saving, and destroying clothing was central to how people waged war and acutely experienced its cost. She is also the author of several articles on the Civil War era that address topics that range from looting and loss, clothing and disease, and the material culture of refugee camps, to body armor and the politics of death, and consumer culture and camp life. Weicksel regularly leads workshops on the use of artifacts in teaching history. She is the project director of the AHA’s NEH grant-funded project, Teaching Things, and the author of a related article, A Case for Objects: Material Culture in the History Classroom, published in the American Historical Review.Prior to joining the AHA, Weicksel worked at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. She earned a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, an MA in American material culture from the Winterthur Program at the University of Delaware, and a BA in history from Yale University.
Jonathan W. White is professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University. He is the author or editor of 21 books that cover a variety of topics related to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. Among his awards are the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia’s Outstanding Faculty Award (2019), CNU’s Alumni Society Award for Teaching and Mentoring (2016), the Abraham Lincoln Institute Book Prize (2015), the University of Maryland Alumni Excellence Award in Research (2024), the Jack Miller Center’s Teaching Excellence Award (2024), and the Penn State History Department’s Outstanding Alumni Award (2025). His recent books include A House Built By Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House (2022), which was co-winner of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize (with Jon Meacham); Shipwrecked: A True Civil War Story of Mutinies, Jailbreaks, Blockade-Running, and the Slave Trade (2023); A Great and Good Man: Rare First-hand Accounts and Observations of Abraham Lincoln (2024); an exciting new children’s book, My Day with Abe Lincoln (2024); and Measuring the Man: The Writings of Frederick Douglass on Abraham Lincoln (2025).
Melissa A. Winn is the Director of Marketing and Communications for the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. Previously, she was the Marketing Manager for the American Battlefield Trust, and Director of Photography for HistoryNet, publisher of nine history-related magazines, including America’s Civil War, American History, and Civil War Times, for which she served as the primary photo researcher, photographer, and a regular writer. She’s a Senior Editor for Military Images magazine, with a regular column focused on women and the Civil War; Editor of Shavings, the member newsletter of the Early American Industries Association, is a member of the Board of Directors of the Civil War Roundtable Congress; and President of the Bull Run Civil War Round Table. Melissa is a member of the Professional Photographers Association, Authors Guild, Women's Relief Corps, and the Center for Civil War Photography.
Angela Zombek is Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She earned her PhD at the University of Florida. Zombek is the author of Penitentiaries, Punishment, & Military Prisons: Familiar Responses to an Extraordinary Crisis During the American Civil War (Kent State University Press, 2018). She has published work on POWs and on Florida's Civil War History in Civil War History, The Journal of the Civil War Era, Ohio History, Emerging Civil War, and for the American Battlefield Trust as a Copie Hill Fellow. Zombek's current book project, Stronghold of the Union: Key West Under Martial Law, is under contract with the University Press of Florida.