Faculty Directory

Research Interests

Professor Ruramisai Charumbira is a cultural historian of Africa, with a research focus on Southern Africa. She is an advocate of an engaged and embodied public humanities and social sciences. And among others, she is an active member of the Memory Studies Association. She is honoured to be working at Western, situated on the traditional territories of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lūnaapéewak and Chonnonton Nations

Research Interests

Professor Dove specializes in public history, Canadian sports history, and the business and social history of the global maritime world in the Early Modern Period (c.1500-1800). He is especially interested in the operation of commercial trading companies including the Hudson’s Bay Company, as well as the growth and decline of piracy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His current research projects include London’s historic Labatt Park, the oldest continually operating baseball grounds in the world, the history of hockey in the Forest City, and a business and cultural history of London’s O-Pee-Chee Company.

Master's level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor Dyczok specializes in international politics and history, with a focus on East Central Europe and Eurasia, and specifically Ukraine. Her research interests are on the politics of history, mass media, migration, post-communism and World War II.

Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor Flath specializes in visual and material culture, as well as the history of monuments, museums, and commemoration. Please see his research and publication page for more information.

Website: Nianhua Gallery:A Study of Chinese Folk Art  https://history.uwo.ca/nianhua/

Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor Keith Fleming is currently working on several projects. The first is a "new" political history of Ontario spanning the 18th to the 21st centuries that he's writing for the University of Toronto Press. Unlike previous surveys of Ontario's history which overstate the province's regional divisions and diversity, a central objective of the book will be to describe how a distinctively Upper Canadian/Ontario identity evolved over time, and in particular since the mid-eighteenth century, by focusing on the political, social, cultural and economic events that contributed to the formation of provincial attitudes and perspectives reasonably deemed "Ontarian." The second project is a history of political protest and dissent throughout Canadian history from the nineteenth century to the present.  The third project is an entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography of George Howard Ferguson (1870-1946), the former Ontario Conservative premier and Canadian high commissioner in London.

 Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Assistant Professor Cody Groat's research interests can broadly be defined as 'public history.' More specifically, he is interested in the commemoration, preservation and stewardship of Indigenous cultural heritage and 'historic sites' by provincial, federal, and international bodies. He is also interested in diverse aspects of Indigenous cultural heritage including archaeological sites, documentary heritage, intangible cultural heritage, and cultural landscapes. His research is influenced by his work as a heritage practitioner, primarily as the President of the Indigenous Heritage Circle, but also through partnerships such as the Canadian Commission for UNESCO and other Indigenous and non-Indigenous organizations.

Research Interests

Professor Halpern specializes in nineteenth and twentieth-century Canadian and American Women's History and Jewish History.

Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor Hamilton is a Public Historian whose research focuses on historical and contemporary issues surrounding museums and heritage, social memory and commemoration, cultural identity and issues of representation, usually in regards to Aboriginal peoples in Canada.

 Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Assistant Professor Mitchell Hammond researches the social and medical history of early modern Europe with a focus on German cities in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He is also interested in the history of public health and the impact of epidemic diseases in the modern world.

Research Interests

Professor Krats studies the "resource frontier" of provinces, especially Ontario; immigration, notably Finnish, is another interest. He is working on a comparison of "northern resource development" in Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula and the Sudbury region of Northeastern Ontario.

Master's level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor MacDougall studies the history of the late 19th and 20th century United States with a special focus on the cultural and political history of information, communication, science, and technology.

 Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor MacEachern is an environmental historian of Canada.

Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor May is a specialist in 18th and 19th century Britain.

 Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor McGlynn's current research interests all deal with the relationship between the Church and the law in late medieval and early Tudor England.

 Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor McKellar studies the history of medicine and disease, with a special interest in the history of medical technology, instruments and devices, the history of surgery, and medical biography. She is also the curator of the Western Medical Artifact Collection.

 Master's & Doctoral Level Supervisor Privileges

Research Interests

Professor McKenna is a specialist in 18th and early 19th century history of women and gender in the North Atlantic. She also researches in the area of violence against women and children and is developing new work on East African colonial women's and gender history.

Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor McKenzie is an international historian who works on the history of international organizations, global trade, and the British Commonwealth – especially on Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor Nathans has published a history of German citizenship policies and an examination of the conduct of a leading official of the Nazi administration of justice. In 2017 Palgrave Macmillan published his analysis of the life and work of a prominent West German radio and television journalist, Peter von Zahn's Cold War Broadcasts to West Germany. Assessing America.  The study focuses on postwar West German debates about the weaknesses and strengths, possibilities and deficiencies, of republican forms of state and society and, in particular, of the United States.  Although Peter von Zahn's American broadcasts date to the 1950s, the subjects on which he focused, the questions he posed, and the insights his work contains, remain relevant to the challenges that continue to face the United States and parliamentary regimes around the world.

 Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor Rhoden is a specialist in colonial British America and the American Revolution, with particular interests in religious and social history.

 Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor Schumacher specializes in international and transnational history with a focus on the role of the United States in world affairs, the history of empires and colonialism, and the global history of genocide and mass violence.

Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor Sendzikas specializes in 20th century U.S. and military history. Her research interests include the U.S. Submarine Service, particularly during WWII; prisoner of war issues;Canada-U.S. relations; and Cold War culture and society

Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor Maya Shatzmiller is a specialist in the social and economic history of the medieval Islamic world and author of several books on the subject, among them 'Labour in the Medieval Islamic World' and 'Women's property Rights in 15th century Granada'. Her project of writing the economic history of medieval Islamic societies in several volumes is under way with the current volume devoted to the monetary history.

Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor Shire is a social and cultural historian whose research focuses on the United States in the nineteenth century, especially the relationship between race, gender, and U.S. expansion. Her research connects scholarship on North American borderlands, Western and Southern U.S. history, the Atlantic world, Native and African American studies, and women’s history.

 Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor Turkel's research interests include computational history, big history, STS, disability studies and disability history, physical computing and desktop fabrication, electronics, sound and esoterica.

Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor Vance teaches military history, Canadian history, and social memory. His current research focuses on the First World War, Canadian culture, and prisoners of war. He also curates the Wartime Canada collection.

Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor Wardhaugh is a historian of twentieth-century Canada. His areas include political history and the history of the Prairie West.

 Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor Young's research interests focus on religious social movements, nationalism, and imperialism in modern Asia, centering especially on Korea and Japan. He also has a strong interest in comparative world history and cross-cultural interaction between different world regions, focusing on Asia as a case study.

Master's & Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Research Interests

Professor Acres current work 'Breaking Trust and the New England Company at the Grand River Mission, 1827-1934' and 'John Strype, New Histories and Old Religion, 1680-1737'

Professor Drachewych’s research interests focus on the history of Russian foreign policy, the history of international
communism, and transnational anti-imperialism. Professor Drachewych has also authored several book reviews in
Canadian Slavonic Papers, Europe-Asia Studies, Revolutionary Russia, and elsewhere. He serves as a reviews editor
for H-Russia.

Professor Fulton studies the history and archaeology of conflict during the Middle Ages, focusing primarily on the crusades and interactions in the Levant during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. His current research projects relate to the contest for control of Egypt in the late twelfth century and the history and development of the great castle of Kerak in Transjordan. 

Research Interests

Adjunct Assistant Professor Iarocci's research interests encompass twentieth-century warfare, military transportation and procurement, and more generally, the material culture of modern conflict.

Research Interests

Erin Isaac specialises in histories of race, religion, and environment, with a focus on lived experience in colonial British North America. Her research considers the ways Black, white, and Indigenous communities in Nova Scotia experienced and reacted to the colony’s climate.

Research Interests

Since 2000, Jean-Pierre Morin is the departmental historian for Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada and Indigenous Services Canada, formerly the Department of Indigenous Affairs and Northern Development, specializing in the history of government policy, administration of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, and the history of treaty-making. Jean-Pierre is currently working on a comprehensive history of the administration of federal Indigenous affairs as well as developing new historical learning tools for federal public servants. In 2018, his book “Solemn Words and Foundational Documents: an Annotated Discussion of Indigenous-Crown Treaties in Canada, 1752-1923” was published by University of Toronto Press.

Research Interests

Professor Priest’s research interests focus on the political history of Canada and the United States, especially during the Cold War era. His work examines how gender norms, specifically hegemonic masculine ideals, intersect with political discourse.

Research Interests

Professor Spanner's research interests include Archival Studies, Reference Services and Outreach Development, Conservation and Preservation Management and Ontario History 

Research Interests

Cristina Stoica's research interests include the history of modern genocide and mass violence, and state formation, migration, ethnicity, and ethno-nationalism in modern European history.

Research Interests

Professor Takagaki's research interests include East Asian Studies and Japanese Studies.

Research Interests

Professor Vacante is a Canadian historian who specializes in the intellectual, political, and gender history of Quebec. His work examines Quebec nationalism in the twentieth century.

Master's and Co-Doctoral Level supervisory privileges

Professor Devine's research and teaching interests focus on the social, cultural and military history of the United States, particularly the Civil War era, with a special interest in medicine and science during and after the war. Her first book, Learning from the Wounded: The Civil War and the Rise of American Medical Science. (The University of North Carolina Press, 2014), examines the work of doctors who served in the Union Medical Department, and explores how their innovations in the midst of crisis transformed northern medical education and gave rise to the healing power of modern health science. Professor Devine's next research project tentatively entitled Science and the Practice of Medicine in the Civil War South and Reconstruction examines medical practice in the Civil War south, which will be published as a companion volume to her work on medical practice in the north. She  is also working on two commissioned works from the United States Army Medical Department in conjunction with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, which examine the larger impact of war on American medicine. 

Research Interests

Dr. Henshaw studies British imperial and Commonwealth history, with a particular focus on 20^th century southern Africa and Canada. His current interest is in John Buchan and identity formation in the “British world”, including the origins of multiculturalism. He has also worked on the military and bureaucratic politics of Anglo-Canadian decisions leading to the launch the Dieppe raid in 1942.

Research Interests

Adjunct Assistant Professor Iarocci's research interests encompass twentieth-century warfare, military transportation and procurement, and more generally, the material culture of modern conflict.

Dr. McAlister is a physician who researches the medical and military history of Canada. He was a transplant surgeon and a military surgeon before joining the department of history. He is the Canadian president of the James IV Association of Surgeons. His selected works are available here.

Professor Tovey is a public historian and cognitive scientist whose research focuses on neighbourhood history and architectural heritage, applications of the internet to public history, geo-locative technologies, 3D modelling of historical buildings and artifacts, theatre history and theatrical re-enactment, historical and contemporary issues surrounding museums and heritage, and the intersections between public history and public astronomy.

Research Interests

Professor Kostal's research interests are focused in the field of modern Anglo-American legal history.