Current Graduate Students

Below is a compilation of our current Graduate Students in History, including a few with short biographies, CV's and contact information. Graduate students are listed in alphabetical order by last name, starting with the PhD students and continuing on with the MA students.

	PhD Students:
	Alan Boone PhD student Email: gaboone@ksu.edu
	Krysti Carlson-Goering is a Doctoral Candidate in History, with particular emphases in United States History, Gender & Labor History, History of Science and Technology, Women & Technology, Mass Media History. View her full CV. Email: krystic@ksu.edu
	Billy Croslow PhD student Email: bcroslow@ksu.edu
	AJ Curtis PhD student Email: aubrey406@ksu.edu
	Matthew Dale is a Ph.D. candidate at the Kansas State University. He is a military historian whose research focuses on the military development of Guam, 1944-1945, its strategic impact on the war, its long-term cultural and environmental impacts, and its enduring role in American strategy in the Indo-Pacific. He graduated from Norwich University in 1994 and received a commission as an armor officer in the United States Army. He served for nearly twenty-eight years from the platoon to the army and joint warfighting headquarters level in plans and operations, training and education assignments in the United States and abroad, including Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Republic of Korea. Spending half of his career as an Army Historian, he served as the Staff Ride Team Chief and Deputy Director of the Army’s Combat Studies Institute (now the Army University Press), and military history instructor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He also served as the acting Command Historian, U.S. Eighth Army, in the Republic of Korea. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from Norwich and a Masters of Military Art and Science in Military History from the U.S. Army Command and Staff College, where his thesis, “The Military Professional Development of Major General Ernest N. Harmon,” received the College’s Arter-Darby Award for best thesis in military history. View his full CV. PhD student Email: mbdale@ksu.edu
	Brad Galka PhD student Email: bgalka@ksu.edu
	September Gering is a Doctoral Student specializing in U.S. Foreign Policy and Security Studies. Crossing over from Classics and Classical Archaeology, she studies the post-Cold War World. Her dissertation topic is America’s strategy in the Balkan Wars in the 1990s. Previous degrees are a B.A. in History from South Dakota State University and an M.A. in Classical Archeology from the University of Alberta. View her full CV. Email: sgering@ksu.edu
	Donald Gibson PhD student Email: dmgibson@ksu.edu
	John Heilmann PhD student Email: jheilmann@ksu.edu
	Melanie Highsmith is a doctoral student at Kansas State University who studies 19th century conceptions of health and wellness, and construction of asylums. Previous degrees include two M.A. degrees from Texas Tech University in History (2018) and Physical Anthropology (2015) as well as a B.A. in History from Angelo State University (2012). Ms. Highsmith is the Curator of Education and Design at the Riley County Historical Museum. View her full CV. Email: mhighsmi@ksu.edu
	Bowen Hou PhD student (GTA) Email: bhou@ksu.edu
	Pat Howlett PhD student Email: phowlett@ksu.edu
	Kenzie Jansonius PhD student (GTA) Email: jansmak@ksu.edu
	Korey Lantes PhD student Email: koreyl@ksu.edu
	Justin McBride PhD student Email: justingreymcbride@ksu.edu
	William Medley PhD student Email: wmedley@ksu.edu
	Phillip Morgan PhD student Email: ptmorgan@ksu.edu
	Tim Morris PhD student Email: timothymorris@ksu.edu
	Jett Nixon PhD student Email: jenixon@ksu.edu
	Hannah Palsa is a PhD student at Kansas State University in their history department. Her dissertation, titled "We love dogs, but we love our soldiers more": Dogs for Defense, Inc., and the American Public in World War II, examines the Dogs for Defense, Inc., organization that formed during World War II and convinced pet owners to donate their pets to the military through the use of crafted government propaganda. She received her BA from Purdue University in History in 2014, and her MA in History with a concentration in Public History from Northern Illinois University in 2018. She began her museum career as a docent at the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site in Indianapolis, IN in 2012 and gave tours until 2016. Currently, she’s employed as a graduate student curatorial assistant at the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Chapman Center for Rural Studies, and the K-State Historic Costume and Textile Museum, all of which are located on the grounds of Kansas State University. She is owned by a happy little cat named Charlie. View her full CV. Email: hepalsa@ksu.edu
	Roy Parker PhD student Email: rcparker@ksu.edu
	Damon Penner (GTA) is a current PhD student in the Kansas State Department of History. He was born and raised in Newton, Kansas. Damon graduated with his BA in History from Wichita State University in December of 2020 and his MA in American History from Kansas State University in August of 2023. Throughout his collegiate career he has interned at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, Harvey County Historic Museum and Archives, and the Fort Riley museums. In addition, he was selected to accompany an archaeological expedition sponsored by Wichita State University and some of his work was incorporated into the renovated exhibits in the Fort Riley museums. Damon has presented his research at various conferences across the Midwest. Although he wrote his master’s thesis on the impact of logistics upon U.S. Army military government in the Southwest during the Mexican-American War, his PhD research will center on the American Civil War’s Trans-Mississippi Theater. View his full CV. Email: dcpenner@ksu.edu
	Michael Santana is a doctoral candidate at Kansas State University whose research focus is US and Spanish counterinsurgency and military action in the Greater Caribbean Basin during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Originally from Miami, FL, he attended the Citadel Military College of South Carolina, earning B.A. in History and Spanish. After graduating in 2015, he returned home, and earned his M.A. in History from Florida International University while teaching full time at a local middle school. Currently ABD and working as a full-time History teacher back in Miami, FL, his dissertation focuses on the social and cultural makeup of the United States and Cuba, with special attention towards the interplay between the militaries of hegemonic powers and smaller states. View his full CV. Email: msantana15@ksu.edu
	D.J. Schaefer is a PhD student at Kansas State University. His research focuses on military history, particularly World War II and the Pacific War. Before attending Kansas State, he served as an infantry reconnaissance scout in the 101st Airborne Division, worked as a commercial fisherman on the Galilee Sea, and as an apprentice grazing dairy farm manager out in Wisconsin. He earned his BA in History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2021 and his MA in Maritime Archaeology from East Carolina University in 2024. His master’s thesis focused on the effectiveness of Imperial Japanese radar and its effectiveness against US aircraft during the Battle of Saipan. His additional research interest is the recovery and identification of US missing in action military personnel lost in past global conflicts. View his full CV. Email: djschaef@ksu.edu
	Charles Sexton PhD student Email: sextonc@ksu.edu
	Jennifer Tope PhD student Email: jtope@ksu.edu
	Brandon Shelley PhD student Email:
	Greg Simmonds PhD student Email: brandonksu@ksu.edu
	Jennifer Tope PhD student Email: jtope@ksu.edu
	Zane A. Whitney Jr. (GTA) is a PhD Candidate at Kansas State University. Zane is a Graduate Fellow with the Second World War Research Group, North American Region. At Kansas State University, he currently serves as the Graduate Student Council President (2026-2027). He holds an MA in World War II Studies from Arizona State University and a BA in History also from ASU. He last attended a college campus in 2010, when he graduated with a BFA in Performance from Stephen F. Austin State University. He is a global military historian whose current research focus is on the Second World War. He is also interested in the history of memory as it pertains to nations and how they commemorate WWII. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and twin sons. View his full CV. Email: zwhitney@ksu.edu
	Zijiang Yang PhD student Email: zijiang@ksu.edu
	Charles Zambito PhD student (GTA) Email: cpzambit@ksu.edu
	Yunxia Zhang PhD student Email: yunxia2@ksu.edu
	MA Students:
	Quentin Bannister MA student Email: qmb5@ksu.edu
	Poppy Barrett-Fox MA student Email: augustbf@ksu.edu
	Dakota Boyles MA student Email: dmboyles1121@ksu.edu
	Michael Godlewsky MA student Email: godlewskym@ksu.edu
	Simon Hall MA student Email: simon75@ksu.edu
	Abby Hollingsworth MA student Email: ahollin@ksu.edu
	Rob Koontz MA student Email: robertjkoontz@ksu.edu
	Sophia Lennox MA student Email: slennox@ksu.edu
	Alisha Rall MA student Email: adr7777@ksu.edu
	Dani Ruetti MA student Email: ruettid@ksu.edu
	Braeden Wilkins MA student Email: braedenw@ksu.edu
	Ben Yerich MA student Email: byerich7@ksu.edu