Academic interests

Indiana/Indianapolis history, late nineteenth and early twentieth-century U.S. history, American urban history, social reform efforts in Indiana during the Progressive era and the Great Depression (currently focusing on New Deal public housing projects in Indiana)

Awards

Hoosier Historian Award from the Indiana Historical Society (2003); Indiana University Trustees Teaching Award (2006)

Publications

Albion Fellows Bacon: Indiana's Municipal Housekeeper (Indiana University Press, 2000)Co-editor Encyclopedia of Indianapolis (Indiana University Press 1994) Articles in Journal of Urban History, Indiana Magazine of History, Ohio Valley History, and Mid-AmericaThree book chapters: "Urbanizing America" in The Gilded Age: Essays on the Origins of Modern America(Scholarly Resources 1996); "Skyscrapers Among the Cornfields: Cities and Urbanization in Indiana History" in The State of Indiana History (Indiana Historical Society, 2001); and "Albion Fellows Bacon: Indiana's Frenzied Philanthropist" in The Human Tradition in Urban America (Scholarly Resources 2002).

Service

History Department chair (2006-2012); departmental Director of Graduate Studies (1995-2005); member, Indiana Association of Historians; chair, Best Article Prize Committee, Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (SHGAPE) (2000-2002); elected to a three-year term on the SHGAPE Council (2010-2013).