Ph.D. Students

Nicole Rae Batten

Nicole Batten
Field of Study: Major – American West, Minor – Public History
Advisor: Dr. Susan Johnson/ Dr. Andy Kirk
Working Dissertation Title: “Fallen Neon: Monuments and Memory”
Research Interest: I am interested in researching and studying the social and cultural history of the North American West at the intersection of environmental, labor, community/identity formation and public memory

Neil Dodge

Neil Dodge

Field of Study: North American West - Indigenous People
Advisor: Dr. William Bauer
Dissertation Title: We are the Children of Changing Woman: From Kinship to Membership in the Navajo Nation 1846-1954.
Research interest: I am interested in the ways in which Indigenous people articulate their origins. Also, how they undergo their own process of reimagination into modern times.

Paige Figanbaum

Paige Figanbaum

Field of Study: North American West
Research Interest: Focusing on Nevada History and its relationship with popular media.

Christina M. Lamoureux

Christina M. Lamoureux

Field of Study: 19th and 20th Century Race, Gender, and Sexuality
Advisor: Dr. Elizabeth Nelson
Research Interest: I examine the relationship between prostitution and print culture in 19th and early 20th century American. Primarily I am concerned with understanding the role of media in representation of prostitutes and how that shapes their public identity.

Mary Ludwig

Mary Ludwig

Field of Study: North American West/Public History
Advisor: Dr. William Bauer
Working Dissertation Title: Japanese-American Internment on Native Lands
Research Interest: At the point, I’m exploring this as a possible topic of study. I enjoy researching social and cultural relationships. I am open to ideas.

Kristen Phipps

Kristen Phipps

Field of Study: American West
Research interest: Slavery in the American West and how it was spread through the military.

Debbie Rayner

Debbie Rayner

Field of Study: 19th Century America
Advisor: Dr. Elizabeth Nelson
Dissertation Title: For the Love of Church and Country: Charles Hodge and the Dilemma of Slavery
Research Interest: I examine the role of the Presbyterian Church and Princeton Seminary in relation to the definition of biblical slavery. The rhetoric surrounding slavery is more complex than a northern or southern disagreement.

Fabian Rebolledo

Nicole Batten
Research Interest: Fabian Rebolledo is a non-traditional, first-generation student who hails from Las Vegas, Nevada. He received his Bachelor in the Arts of History from Nevada State College and is pursuing a Ph.D. in History from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in the post-baccalaureate program. His concentration lies in the North American West, focusing specifically on the southwest borderlands, Mexican equestrian culture, and Mexican and Mexican American Identity. His research interests are grounded in identifying and interpreting the cultural traditions rooted in vaquero culture both within Mexico and throughout the American West. He aims to showcase the adaptations and incorporations of charreria in popular American culture and explore how rodeos often ignore this culture in contemporary "American" rodeo events.

Douglas Smith

Douglas Smith

Field of Study: North American Culture and Society
Research interest: Disability history and legal history

James Steele

James Steele

Field of Study: American Popular Culture of the 20th Century
Advisor: Dr. Michael Green
Dissertation Title: “The Fire Over There”
Research Interest: The media frenzy surrounding the King beating and the subsequent civil unrest did not tell the whole story. This work explores the shortcomings of media coverage and the ways these events were described to the American people and the world.

Analiesa Delgado

Field of Study: North American West
Research Interest: I am interested in researching the links between Native and Latinx communities in Southern California.

Dakota Ciolkosz

Field of Study: European Culture and Society/Environmental History
Advisor: Dr. Gregory Brown
Research Interest: French eighteenth and nineteenth-century specifically the French Revolution, First French Empire, The Bourbon Restoration, as well as natural resource management in a historical context.

Masters Students

Matthew Conner

A man with glasses

Advisor: Dr. E. Whitney
Field of Study: European and Public History
Research interest: Medieval European Culture and the Crusade Impulse

Evan Reynolds

Paige Figanbaum

Advisor: Dr. M. Casas
Field of Study: Major: U.S History, Minor: European History
Research interest: The Development Culture and Race in the United States and Modern Britain.

Angel Wakaiihuri

Paige Figanbaum

Advisor: Dr. A. B. Wilkinson
Field of Study: Cultural and Intellectual American History with a minor in World History
Research interest: Around the Global Spread of White Supremacy, Depictions of Black People in Media. Specifically anime and manga and global perceptions of black people.