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CANDIDATES: GSC SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR
.png)  | Candidate #1 My name is Dale Mize and I am a second-year Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. My research explores the historical trajectory of obesity and fat concerns in the United States over the course of the twentieth century and investigates the alterations that occur in human and cattle bodies because of these fears. I have been a WHA member since 2022 and attended both the San Antonio and Los Angeles conferences working as a grad staff member. WHA has become my home organization, and I feel that with every year I attend the conference I come away with new ideas that continue to push my work forward. It is because of the inspiring work that WHA scholars do that I am interested in running for the position of Social Media & Public Relations Coordinator for the WHAGSC. As the next generation of Western historians, it is our work that will continue to help our field evolve and grow, that is an exciting thought, and social media can play a crucial role in helping us promote our scholarship and reach those broader audiences we all aspire for. With proven experience as the communications chair of the Graduate Employees Organization, IFT/AFT Local 6300, I am confident that I possess the skills necessary to execute this role well and do it in a manner that highlights our organization and the wonderful scholars who call it home. |
| Candidate #2 Joseph Connole is in his second year of graduate school, pursuing a Master of Arts in American Studies with an emphasis in History at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. His research focuses on the impact of settler colonialism on Native American communities and how settler colonialism affects Native American identity and sovereignty. His thesis will examine the role of settler colonialism in scholarly works about the Tonkawa in the 20th century. During his time at Northeastern State University, Joseph has done research on the role of the Thanksgiving narrative in our perceptions of Native Americans, as well as on the Battle of Pequawacket, which he presented at the Texas A&M Graduate History Conference in February 2024. Joseph published his paper “A Terrible Truth: The Tonkawa Massacre of 1862” with the Chronicles of Oklahoma in 2020. Joseph has also contributed articles on Native American history to Whispering Wind Magazine. Additionally, he authored The Civil War and the Subversion of American Indian Sovereignty, published by McFarland Press in 2017. Joseph is a member of the Western History Association and the Organization of American Historians. Besides his academic pursuits, Joseph is employed full-time by the Boy Scouts of America in Tupelo, MS, as a Senior District Executive. His role involves selling the Scouting program to youth, adults, and the community at large and working with volunteers to deliver the Scouting program to youth. Additionally, Joseph has experience managing social media accounts, including those on Facebook, Instagram, and the Natchez Trace Council website. |
| Candidate #3 Analiesa (Annie) Delgado is a fifth-year history PhD candidate enrolled at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, in the post-baccalaureate program. She is a first-generation graduate student, and holds Bachelor’s degrees in history and political science from the University of California, Riverside. She also earned a Masters Degree in history from UNLV. Her current research focuses on the entanglements of gender and United States Empire within the Federal Indian Boarding Schools. Presently, Annie holds the Schuck Family Graduate Assistantship in Public History, where she is the lead graduate student spearheading significant public history initiatives at UNLV. Beyond her academic commitments, she is the lead intern at the non-profit organization, IndigenousAF where she works directly with the urban Native community in Las Vegas. |
CANDIDATES: GSC OUTREACH AND MEMBERSHIP COORDINATOR
| Candidate #1 Hailey Doucette is a second year Ph.D. student at the University of Kansas (KU) where she is studying post-World War II environmentalism in Colorado concerning topics such as air, water, and land pollution, wildlife management, and wilderness and open spaces. Before coming to KU, Hailey received her M.A. from Colorado State University in 2023 where she studied the environmental and labor history of copper mining in Superior, Arizona and her B.A. in 2021, also from CSU, where she studied wild horse history and management in Northwestern, Colorado. Hailey became a WHA member in 2021, when she also attended her first WHA as a first year M.A. student at CSU. Hailey attended and worked as a graduate student staff member at WHA in Portland (2021), San Antonio (2022), and Los Angeles (2023) and is applying to work as a grad staff member at WHA in Kansas City this year. In 2022, she was a recipient of the WHA Graduate Student Prize. Currently, Hailey is serving as the social chair and treasurer for the History Graduate Student Organization at KU. And as a second year M.A. student at CSU, Hailey served as the vice president of the History Graduate Student Association. In both positions she gained experience and skills that will allow her to succeed as the Outreach & Membership Coordinator for the WHA Grad Caucus. |
 | Candidate #2 Hi all! I’m Samuel Reitenour, a soon-to-be fourth-year Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at El Paso. In my work, I use the twentieth-century history of Santa Fe, New Mexico as a case study to examine how residents of tourism destination communities’ debate about tourism’s role in their economies. I am excited to be considered for a spot on the WHAGSC team as the next Outreach and Membership Coordinator! I have been a WHA member since 2021, and I greatly appreciate the rigorous yet warm and inviting atmosphere that the organization’s annual conferences foster. I presented at the 2022 and 2023 conferences, and I am looking forward to doing so again this year in Kansas City. I hope to leverage my prior experiences to the benefit of the WHAGSC as the Outreach and Membership Coordinator. In my capacity as the Graduate Assistant for the Conference on Latin American History (CLAH), I have undertaken a substantial revamp of that organization’s biannual newsletter. I'd love to bring the skills I've gained working for CLAH to the table for the WHAGSC by working on the quarterly newsletter. Prior roles on the executive boards of student organizations at my undergraduate institution have also prepared me to handle the communication that managing the blog posts and advertising the Graduate Student Prize will entail. I would be honored to serve you all as the next Outreach and Membership Coordinator and would welcome the chance to represent the interests of the WHA’s lively graduate student membership! |
| Candidate #3 My name is Kyley Canion Brewer and I am a 3rd year PhD student at Washington State University. I am applying for the WHAGSC Membership and Outreach Coordinator Position. My dissertation research looks at nuclear testing in Alaska between 1945 and 1973, with a specific focus on how safety protocols were disparately applied across white and indigenous peoples and land by federal organizations and how these relationships were crafted by and perpetuated colonial biases. Since starting at WSU, I have served actively in the History Graduate Student Association. Serving as the HGSA’s digital representative since 2022, I have been responsible for evolving our graduate student blog to a full website scheduled to go online later this Fall. In the 2023 – 2024 academic year I also served as HGSA Chair. During this time, I helped to revitalize the WSU History department’s annual graduate student conference, expanding it from 15 to 24 student presenters and opening the conference to students from a variety of humanities disciplines. I also helped to establish a relationship between WSU and University of Idaho’s history programs to enable better communication and facilitate professional development for graduate students in both programs. In both roles I worked to combine our graduate student newsletter with our department’s alumni newsletter, spreading greater awareness of graduate students’ work and achievements. I feel that these experiences will carry over well to the WHAGSC and am eager to take on a more active role in the organization. |
CANDIDATES: GSC DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION COORDINATOR
| My name is Justin Salgado, and I am a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History at The Ohio State University. I specialize in the histories of gender, sexuality, and the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands. Currently, I am working on my dissertation project that examines the history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the border cities of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. I am particularly interested in the lives and experiences of AIDS activists, LGBTQ+ communities, sex workers, and people in transit who faced significant challenges during the epidemic. I study how people transcended the limitations of the border to provide mutual aid during global health crises. My research explores the significance of solidarity and collaborative efforts in addressing public health emergencies, emphasizing the need to think beyond national barriers. Before this project, I worked on the history of gay rodeo, examining the figure of the gay cowboy and queer communities in the American West. In my research, I seek to identify and address systemic barriers by recognizing inclusive practices at the border that foster diverse perspectives. I am seeking the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator position on the WHA Grad Caucus because I am deeply committed to advocating for underrepresented groups. I hope to help the grad caucus grow by creating a welcoming and nurturing space for our members, especially those that come from first-gen, immigrant, queer, and other historically marginalized groups. |
CANDIDATES: GSC FUNDRAISING COORDINATOR
| David is a PhD candidate in history at the University of California, Davis. His work focuses on performance, place, and the meanings of “conquest” in the nineteenth-century U.S.-Mexico borderlands. He has gotten to know the borderlands from growing up in Texas as well as living in New Mexico and California. His experiences inform his emphasis on the borderlands as a region of creativity. Through his recent participation in the O’ga P’ogeh Land Tax project as internal communications coordinator, David brings experience in organizing to the fundraising coordinator position. He hopes to foster the continued growth of the graduate student body within the WHA, with a particular focus on inclusivity and equity. |
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