2026 marks my 30th year as adjunct faculty in California colleges and universities, teaching lower- and upper-division courses in U.S. history, women’s history, and the histories of California and the American West.
As an educator, I focus on helping students improve their critical thinking, reading, and writing skills, tools they need as members of an information-saturated, as-yet democratic society. As a scholar, I specialize in the history of California and the San Francisco Bay Area.
My short list of publications includes "‘Going About and Doing Good’: The Politics of Benevolence, Welfare, and Gender in San Francisco, 1850-1880," Pacific Historical Review 68:3 (August 1999), which won the Coalition for Western Women’s History 1999 Jensen-Miller Best Article Prize; "'The Air is Becoming Full of War': Jewish San Francisco and World War I," Pacific Historical Review, 73:3 (August 2005); "Sex, War, and Community Service: The Battle for San Francisco's Jewish Community Center," Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 32:1 (2011); and "‘Women with Hearts’ and the Americanization of Jewish San Francisco, 1850-1880,” Pacific Historical Review, 92:4 (November 2023). The latter two articles won the National Coalition of Independent Scholars Eisenstein-DeLacy Award.
I co-authored and co-edited Women and Gender in the American West: Jensen-Miller Essays from the Coalition for Western Women's History (University of New Mexico Press, 2004, and Women and Politics: California from the Gold Rush to the Great Depression (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011). I am co-author of The Elusive Eden: A New History of California (Waveland Press), now in its fifth edition.
I became editor of the academic quarterly California History, published by the University of California Press, in 2020. I am particularly proud of best-article prizes won by California History authors during my tenure, namely the 2020 Western Association of Women Historians' Judith Lee Ridge Prize; the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies' 2024 Antonia I. Castañeda Prize; and, both in 2025, the Western History Association's Michael P. Malone Award and Arrington-Prucha Prize.
My contributions to the profession began in 1997, when I agreed to serve as Chair of the Coalition for Western Women Historians’ Steering Committee, and served through 2007. I was a member of the Western Association of Women Historians' executive board from 2003 to 2007.
I served in numerous positions in the California Conference of the American Association of University Professors from 2014 through 2020: Vice-President for Community Colleges; Secretary/Treasurer; and Acting President. From 2019 to 2022, I was a member of the Organization of American Historians' (OAH) Committee on the Status of Women in the Historical Profession. Presently, I am co-chair (with Thomas Kurtz) of OAH’s Local Resources Committee for its 2027 annual meeting. This is a reprise of my role (with Felicia Angeja Viator) in planning the American Historical Association’s 2024 annual meeting.
It was my privilege to serve the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association (PCB-AHA) as its Public History representative from 2020–2023; presently, I am a member of the PCB’s Finance Committee. I previously thought I could receive no greater accolade than the PCB’s 2022 Distinguished Service Award, but in 2026 I will begin my three-year term as president of the PCB-AHA. I will be the first lecturer ever elected to serve in this position.