I have always been impressed by the many ways people throughout time have attempted to resolve the challenges they encountered whether as individuals or through agencies and institutions. When I look at evidence that exposes the methods used by famous and not-so-famous historical actors, I am reminded that the study of history involves not only an assessment of what happened but also an analysis of how and why one course of action won out over another option. Although I am an historian of the United States in the twentieth century, the research questions I pursue endeavor to situate the experiences of diverse groups of people and ideas in a transnational context. My research interests in the history of international and interracial adoption, marriage and family, and Cold War civil rights, allow me to consider how people have and continue to remake ideas about gender, race, class, and citizenship as a result of personal, national, and international imperatives. To fully explore these areas of inquiry, I use methods familiar to practitioners of social, cultural, and political analyses.
