Leadership and Content Team

Kelly Schrum, Director and PI

Schrum is the Director of Educational Projects at CHNM and an Associate Professor in the Higher Education Program at George Mason University. Schrum is co-director of the websites World History Sources and Women in World History, Making the History of 1989, and Children and Youth in World History and is associate director of History Matters. She serves or has served as the Academic Program Director on six TAH grants in northern Virginia and Maryland. Schrum received her B.A. from UC Berkeley and her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of Some Wore Bobby Sox: The Emergence of Teenage Girls’ Culture, 1920-1950. Other publications include U.S. History Matters: A Student Guide to U.S. History Online, and World History Matters: A Student Guide to World History Online as well as articles on teenage girls and on teaching and new media. Schrum presents regularly at local, state, and national conferences including the AHA, OAH, Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, NCSS, and the annual TAH Project Directors’ meeting. She has worked extensively in the areas of 20th-century American culture, new media, and teacher training.

Daisy Martin, Director of History Education

Martin is a former high school history and civics teacher who served as co-director of the Stanford History Education Group. She earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Teacher Education in History and Social Science Education in 2005 with a dissertation entitled “Teaching for Historical Thinking: Teacher Conceptions, Practices, and Constraints.” She recently co-directed Historical Thinking Matters, serves as teaching consultant with professional development efforts organized by the Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project, and teaches history teacher-candidates. She has worked with elementary, middle, and high school teachers in TAH grants in California, Nebraska, Ohio, and Tennessee, and led professional development workshops funded by NEH, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and the Teachers for a New Era project at Stanford. Current projects include creating classroom ready resources for teaching historical problems and researching teacher practices and conceptions relevant to this kind of teaching. Her publications include articles in The History Teacher (forthcoming) and Educational Leadership.

John Buescher, Historian and Researcher

Buescher headed the Voice of America’s radio and TV Tibetan language broadcasts for more than 15 years. He has served as Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and as Program Officer in the Division of Education Programs of the National Endowment for the Humanities. His Ph.D. is in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia. He has published extensively on the history of Tibetan and Indian Buddhism and on the history of 19th-century American Spiritualism.

Alan Gevinson, Historian

Gevinson is co-author of History Matters: A Student Guide to U.S. History Online (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005), author of Library of Congress Motion Pictures, Broadcasting, Recorded Sound: An Illustrated Guide (Library of Congress, 2002), editor of Within Our Gates: Ethnicity in American Feature Films, 1911–1960 (University of California Press, 1997), and associate editor of The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States: Feature Films, 1931-1940 (University of California Press, 1993). At CHNM, he has worked on the websites History Matters and Making the History of 1989. He received a Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University and teaches history at George Mason University. He specializes in 19th- and 20th-century American cultural history, media history, film history, and older forms of popular culture.

Lara Harmon, Research Associate

Harmon earned her B.A. in theatre from George Mason University in 2008. Harmon’s interests include dramaturgy (research to support theatrical productions); Japanese culture and language; creative writing; community development, identity creation, exploration, and storytelling in new media; and speculative fiction in popular culture.

Emily Purdue, Outreach Assistant

Amanda Rosenberg, Research Assistant

Jack Schneider

Schneider is a former high school history teacher in Pennsylvania. He is currently a doctoral student in the History of Education at Stanford University. His research focuses on equity and school reform, with recent publications exploring school desegregation in Los Angeles and the history of the Advanced Placement Program.

Eric Shed

Shed is a doctoral student at Stanford and teaches in the university’s teacher preparation program. Prior to graduate school he taught high school social studies for 8 years in New York City. His research interests center on examining how the media influences historical thinking.

Mark D. Smith

Mark Smith is a second year doctoral student in the School of Education at Stanford. Formerly he taught high school social studies in Iowa and Texas.

Web Design and Development

James McCartney, Lead Programmer

McCartney is a CHNM developer specializing in the Drupal CMS and the lead developer for the NHEC project. He holds a B.S. in Computer Information Systems from Missouri State University and is currently pursuing his M.S. in Applied Information Technology from George Mason University.

Chris Preparato, Multimedia Developer

Preperato is the lead video editor at CHNM. He earned is B.A. in Communication Arts from Allegheny College, specializing in Video Production. In addition to his work at CHNM, he has produced a seven-part radio mini-series, and has been accepted into several film festivals with his short documentary on sleep deprivation entitled Wide Awake.

Chris Raymond, Lead Design

Raymond has diverse experience creating effective, award-winning visual communications as a graphic designer, web designer, science museum exhibit researcher/writer, science journalist, and publications director for an association of hands-on science museums. She has a Ph.D. in sociology from Cornell University with emphasis in mass media and sociology of science; her dissertation examined coverage of occupational health in the mainstream and alternative press. Raymond’s strong suits as a designer are typography, color, integrating imagery and text, and information hierarchy. She formally studied graphic design at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Ammon Shepherd, Webmaster

Shepherd is Webmaster and Technical Coordinator at CHNM. He holds a an M.A. in history from George Mason University, where he is currently enrolled in the doctoral program. His research interests focus on the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Germany.

Graphic Design

Apsara, Graphic Designer

Apsara is a creative studio based in Washington, DC., specializing in graphic design for print and interactive collateral and project management from concept to delivery. Apsara designs all Teachinghistory.org print and e-newsletter materials.