Resume
Education:
Doctorate in American Studies, Boston University, Boston, MA, 1999. Interests in cultural and intellectual history, gender studies, and the history of social change and social thought.
Master of Theological Studies. Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA, 1990. Focus on gender and religion.
Bachelor of Arts with Distinction. Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA, 1987. Double major in biology and religion with a concentration in women’s studies. Oak Leaf Award for senior woman “outstanding in leadership, scholarship, and contributions to the college community.”
Currently:
Organizing and leading a year-long series of programs on “Exploring Islam” at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist of Arlington.
Convening and leading economics soirees on the federal budget, health care inflation, etc.
Scientific writing coach and editor. Helping a neurobiology researcher prepare grant proposals and research papers.
Producing a Winter Spirit concert for Peter Mayer on January 21, 2012, at First Parish Arlington.
Public Speaking:
Sermons …
“Loving My Country,” First Parish Unitarian Universalist of Arlington, July 3, 2011.
“Memorial Day as an African-American Holiday,” First Parish in Waltham (Unitarian Universalist), May 29, 2011.
“The Problem of Hope,” First Parish Arlington, November 29, 2009.
“Why Do We Work?” First Parish Arlington, September 6, 2009.
“Memorial Day as an African-American Holiday,” Unitarian Universalist Church of Reading, May 24, 2009.
“Celebrating Summer,” First Parish Arlington, June 22, 2008.
“The Spiritual Practice of Gardening,” Unitarian Universalist Church of Reading, May 25, 2008.
“Life in Balance: Gardening as Spiritual Practice,” First Parish Arlington, April 27, 2008.
“Encounters with the Qur’an,” First Parish Arlington, September 2, 2007.
“The Changing Meanings of Marriage,” First Parish Arlington, February 4 2007.
“Reinventing Marriage,” First Parish in Bedford Unitarian Universalist Church, November 16, 2005.
Talks …
“Who Was Muhammad?” First Parish Arlington, October 2011.
“Beyond the Grandstanding: What’s Really Going on with the Federal Budget?” First Parish Arlington, October 2011.
“A Very Brief History of Islam,” Unitarian Universalist Church of Reading, October 2011, and First Parish Arlington, April 2011 and May 2011.
“What Does the Qur’an Say about Gender?” First Parish Arlington, May 2011.
“The Science and Virtues of Compost,” Arlington Garden Club, July 2008.
“A Hop, Skip, and a Jump through the History of Religious Influences on American Tax Culture,” United for a Fair Economy, Boston, MA, October 2006.
“Some Thoughts on the History of Southern Tax Culture,” United for a Fair Economy, Boston, MA, September 2006.
“From the City on the Hill to the Contract with America: How American Protestantism Shaped Americans’ Attitudes Towards Taxes,” American and New England Studies Program, Boston University, November 2005.
“Reinventing Marriage,” Robbins Library, Arlington, MA, October 2005.
“How Can I Help Make the World A Better Place?: The Changing Answers of Lydia Maria Child,” Wayland Historical Society/Wayland Middle School, Wayland, MA, November 2003.
“How Does One Judge a Marriage? Aspirations, Ideals, and Realities in the Marriage of Alice Freeman Palmer and George Herbert Palmer,” American Studies Program, Boston University, January 1999.
“The Making of Modern American Marriage,” Women’s Studies Program, Boston University, April 1998.
“Marriage and the Pursuit of a ‘Clear and Serious Profession’: Alice Freeman Palmer and George Herbert Palmer, 1887-1902,” History Department, Syracuse University, February 1998.
“What Makes a Good Life?: The Changing Answers of Alice Freeman Palmer and George Herbert Palmer,” American and New England Studies Program “brown bag” lunch talk series, Boston University, April 1996.
“Gay Immigrants: A Study in Cultural Crossings,” at the American Studies Association Conference, Boston, MA, October 1993, and the New England American Studies Association Conference, University of Massachusetts at Boston, April 1992.
“Abortion in the Life and Times of ‘The Most Evil Woman in New York,’ Madame Restell,” at “Celebration of Our Work,” Rutgers University Institute for Research on Women, May 1990.
“Fundamentalist Women’s Constructions of Gender: Where Religion and Politics Meet,” at “Women in the Year 2000: Utopian and Dystopian Visions,” Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, April 1988.
Teaching:
University level …
Lecturer, Harvard University Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA. Fall 2001-Fall 2002. Taught the history of American higher education and the history of equity issues in education.
Lecturer (full time), Boston University, Boston, MA. Fall 1999-Spring 2000. Taught introductory graduate seminars and American intellectual history.
Instructor or Teaching Fellow (part time but teaching own courses), Boston University, Boston, MA. Designed and taught courses on American intellectual history, women’s history, women’s studies, the history of manhood, and the history of ordinary life.
Other …
Convened and led discussion groups: “Islam Reading Circle” (2011), “The Omnivore’s Dilemma and American Foodways” (2006), “Globalization” (2005), “Bioethics” (2004), “Middle Eastern History and Culture” (2003), “How, Really, Do Gender, Class, and Race Affect Our Lives?” (2002), “Work and Leisure” (2002), and “Voluntary Simplicity” (2001 & 2008).
“Believers and Non-Believers: Teachings from the Qur’an,” First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, Fall 2010.
“Introduction to the Qur’an,” Arlington Community Education, Spring 2007 and Fall 2007, and First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, Winter 2008 and Winter 2009.
“Earth-Friendly Low-Maintenance Gardening,” Arlington Community Education, Spring 2007, Fall 2007, Fall 2009, & Spring 2010, and First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, Spring 2009.
“Girls (and Boys) Just Want to Have Fun?: A History of Sexuality and Adolescence,” a three-day seminar for the Teachers as Scholars Program, Fall 2003, Winter 2003, & Winter 2004.
“U.S. Environmental History and Environmental Change” and “Pigs, Gold, and Garbage: An Introduction to U.S. Environmental History” [same seminar, different titles], Teachers as Scholars Program, Spring 2003 & Spring 2004.
Publications:
Books …
Reinventing Marriage: The Love and Work of Alice Freeman Palmer and George Herbert Palmer (University of Illinois Press, 2005).
Lydia Maria Child: The Quest for Racial Justice (Oxford University Press, 2002). [Young adults’ biography.]
Selected Articles …
Entries on “Biology,” “Lydia Maria Child,” “Angelina Grimké,” “Sarah Grimké,” “Married Women’s Property Acts,” “Professions and Professionalism,” and “United States History: Colonial Period,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History (Oxford University Press, 2008).
Entry on “Lydia Maria Child” in the Encyclopedia of Religion, Second Edition (Macmillan, 2005).
[with Lori Glazier, a former student] “Welcome to America: The World War I Era and the Rise of International Education in the United States,” International Educator (Summer 2002).
Entry on “Alice Freeman Palmer” in the Encyclopedia of Education, Second Edition (Macmillan, 2002).
“A Misguided History Lesson,” Boston Globe, August 25, 2001. [Op-Ed piece on the history MCAS and teaching about the history of race.]
Entry on “Morality” in The Louisa May Alcott Encyclopedia, ed. Gregory Eiselein and Anne K. Phillips (Greenwood Press, 2001).
“Just a Spoonful of Sugar?: Anxieties of Gender and Class in ‘Mary Poppins’,” in Girls, Boys, Books, Toys: Gender in Children’s Literature and Culture, ed. Beverly Lyon Clark and Margaret Higonnet (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).
“It Is Time to End the War on Drugs,” Cambridge Chronicle, May 7, 1998. [Op-Ed piece.]
Bibliographic essays on “Abortion, Pre-Twentieth Century History,” “American Women’s History, General Works,” “Coeducation,” and “Feminism, Nineteenth Century,” in the Reader’s Guide to Women’s Studies, ed. Eleanor B. Amico (Fitzroy Dearborn, 1998).
“Homoerotics and Human Connections: Reading Carson McCullers ‘As a Lesbian’,” in Critical Essays on Carson McCullers, ed. Melvin J. Friedman and Beverly Lyon Clark (G. K. Hall, 1996).
Entries on “Lydia Maria Child,” “Feminism,” and “Gay and Lesbian Identities,” in A Companion to American Thought, ed. Richard Wightman Fox and James Kloppenberg (Blackwell, 1995).
S. Heinhorst, G. C. Gannon, E. Galun, L. Kenschaft, and A. Weissbach, “Clone bank and physical and genetic map of potato chloroplast DNA,” Theoretical and Applied Genetics (1988): 244-251.
[As a member of the Biology and Gender Study Group], “The Importance of Feminist Critique for Contemporary Cell Biology,” in Feminism and Science, ed. Nancy Tuana (Indiana University Press, 1989).
Other Experience:
Volunteer, First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington. Worked 20-40 hours a week as chair of the property committee (including leading a sanctuary renovation and increasing volunteers from a handful to more than 40), coordinator of summer services, and general problem-solver. 2007-2010.
Concert Producer, Cambridge, Boston, and Arlington, MA. Produced and publicized concerts for Romanovsky & Phillips, Fred Small, Judy Fjell and Peter Mayer. 1988-2008.
Created, with my partner, a classroom grants program for Boston public elementary school teachers, 1998-2003. This program was profiled in a July 5, 1998, Boston Globe article and on the “Humankind” radio show in 1999.
Executive Director, Association for Women in Mathematics, Wellesley, MA. Responsible for member services and recruitment, program development, and administration. 1987-1988.
Summer Intern, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. Used fluorescent tagging in a study of pinocytosis. Summer 1986.
Honors Summer Intern, Roche Institute for Molecular Biology, Nutley, NJ. Used recombinant DNA techniques to start a library of the potato chloroplast genome. Summer 1985.
Host of a singing group for people who can tolerate people who can’t sing, 1990-present.
[last updated October 2011]