Department: University Archives

Dr. Monica Kristin Blair is a public historian who specializes in histories of education and racial inequality in America. She currently works as the Historian & Education Coordinator for the Hopkins Retrospective Project at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Blair has a Ph.D. in United States history from the University of Virginia and a background in research, teaching, and public and digital humanities. She believes that a combination of deep historical research and community-based approaches to public history are key to building just and inclusive educational spaces. Dr. Blair is also writing a book about the history of racial inequality in the K-12 school privatization movement entitled: Private Schools, Public Money: The Modern History of School Choice.

Education

• PhD., United States History, University of Virginia, 2021
• MA., History, University of Georgia, 2015
• BA., History, University of Florida, 2013

Public History Experience

• 2022-Present, Historian & Education Coordinator, Hopkins Retrospective Project, Sheridan Libraries, Johns Hopkins University
• 2020-Present, Naming of Facilities Committee Member, Charlottesville City Schools, Charlottesville, Va
• 2021-2022: Postdoctoral Fellow & Executive Producer of The Past, The Promise, The Presidency podcast, Southern Methodist University
• 2018-2019: Lead Researcher, BackStory podcast, Virginia Humanities
• 2019: Researcher, Committee on Renaming, University of Virginia School of Education
• 2017-2018: Praxis Fellow, UVA Reveal, University of Virginia
• 2016: Graduate Researcher, The President’s Commission on Slavery and Jefferson’s University—the Early Life Project, University of Virginia
• 2012-2013: Archival Assistant, George A. Smathers Special Collections Library, University of Florida
• 2012-2013: Docent, Historic Haile Homestead at Kanapaha Plantation, Gainesville, Florida
• 2011: Intern, Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, University of Virginia

Teaching Experience

• Instructor, US History Since WWII: People, Politics, Power, University of Virginia
• Head Teaching Assistant, Whiteness: History of a Racial Category, University of Virginia
• Teaching Assistant, Intro to American Studies, S. Foreign Policy Since 1914, University of Virginia
• Teaching Assistant, US History to 1865, US History Since 1865, University of Georgia
• Instructor, Civil and Environmental Law, Duke Talent Identification Program
• Teaching Assistant, Government and Public Policy, Duke Talent Identification Program

Liz Beckman is a processing archivist working as part of the Hopkins Retrospective Project team. She is passionate about broadening access to archival resources and increasing the number and types of voices reflected in the archival record. Before coming to Hopkins, she worked as the Manuscripts and Archives Librarian at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. She began working at Mason as the Processing Coordinator in 2014. Prior to this she had a variety of archives-related internships in Washington, D.C. and Pittsburgh, PA.