
Kelly Brignac
Assistant Professor of History
Assistant Professor of History
Assistant Professor of History
Assistant Professor of History
Assistant Professor of History
Visiting Assistant Professor of History
Assistant Professor of History
Visiting Assistant Professor of History, Director of the Integrated Studies Program
The John J. and Cornelia V. Gibson Professor of History; Chair of Jewish Studies
Visiting Assistant Professor of History
Professor of History
Associate Professor of History; Associate Chair of History
Associate Professor of History; Chair of History
Administrative Assistant – American Studies, CISI (Critical Indigenous Studies Initiative), History, and WGSS (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies)
Business Title Christian A. Johnson Distinguished Teaching Professor of History
Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant
- Paul R. Josephson, M.A. ’08, Ph.D. (Antioch, Harvard, MIT), 2000-2022, Professor of History, Emeritus
- Elizabeth D. Leonard, M.A. ’05, Ph.D. (New Rochelle, California at Riverside), 1992-2019, John J. and Cornelia V. Gibson Professor of History, Emerita
- Richard J. Moss, M.A. ’90, Ph.D., 1978-2005, John J. and Cornelia V. Gibson Professor of History, Emeritus
- James L.A. Webb Jr., M.A. ’03, Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins), 1987-2018, Professor of History, Emeritus
At Colby College faculty members are granted sabbatical leaves to further their scholarship and become more effective representatives of their disciplines and members of the Colby faculty. Pretenured faculty members (assistant professors) receive their first sabbatical after successfully completing their sixth-semester review; all tenured faculty (associate and full professors) are granted a sabbatical leave for each six years of service following their last sabbatical. During their sabbatical leave, history professors are often, but not always, replaced by a visiting assistant professor (VAP).Â
The sabbatical schedule listed below allows students to take sabbatical leaves into consideration when planning their major. The schedule is subject to change.Â
Academic Year 2023-2024
Assistant Professor Danae Jacobson
Professor Raffael Scheck
Academic Year 2024-2025
Assistant Professor Kelly Brignac
Assistant Professor Inga Kim Diedrich
Professor Larissa Taylor (Fall of 24 only)
Academic Year 2025-2026
Associate Professor Arnout van der Meer
Professor Rob Weisbrot
Academic Year 2026-2027
Assistant Professor Zoe Shan Lin
Academic Year 2029-2030
Assistant Professor Sarah Duff
Associate Professor John Turner
Landon Alpaugh
Zoe Appio
Chris Athanasia
Harri Baker
Ham Boley
Noah Boyle
Chris Bruen
Lydia Burke
Kenzie Burns
Charlotte Buswick
Isabelle Callanan
Alex Canellakis
Elle Cavanaugh
Jake Cohen
Kevin Craig
Dante D’Alessandro
Nora Davies
Emma Davis
Tyler Dudgeon
Teddy Durbin
Ben Entner
Sean Farren
Talia Fechter
Annaliese Fleck
Clint Flippo
Connor Gallagher
Anela Gallegos
Cindy Giandomenico
Christian Gobo
Ryan Grecco
Jack Hansen
Sofia Hegstrom
Clementine Henderson
Ethan Hillenberg
Mariella Hilyard
Lanning Hopper
Jacob Johnston
Yumi Kang
Liam Keefe
Oliver Kennon
Lillian Kistner
Niamh Lacey
Paige Larose
Eliza LaRovere Abrams
Hanley Lee
Bryce Leos
Peter Londoner
Charlie Macdonnell
Sareni Manriquez
Emily Marrinan
Declan McNamara
Jack Mendez
Claire Meng
Aaron Mills
Rachel Nicholas
Isak Nightingale
Sydney Pascal
Chris Patten
Cole Pfeffer
Ethan Phelps
Quinn Potter
Cameron Ripley
Graham Rivers
Lucy Robinson
Harry Robison
Olivia Rowbottom
Conrad Runte
Maya Sachs
Peter Sanford
Brendan Sawyer
Jack Sawyer
Eva Schiffman
Marian Searby
Karen Shi
Aleesha Siddiqui
Ben Spragg
Anna Staton
Ariel Steber
Owen Steckel
Sally Stokes
Moya Stringer
Malia Sung
Alaina Thonn
Pierce Ticen
Max Toomey
Cole Tully
Josie Van Rooy
Adrian Visscher
Julia Walsh
Tsukasa Watanabe
Julian Wu
Jack Young
Cynthia Zafiris
Lydia Burke
Hi! My name is Lydia Burke and I’m a senior here at Colby from Brooklyn, New York. I am double majoring in History and Art History, and writing my history honors thesis on the art colony at Ogunquit, Maine, combining my knowledge from both of my majors with my love for the state of Maine! After graduation, I hope to go into the art world, either in museums, auction houses, or design.
Charlotte Buswick
I am a history major and a science, technology, & society minor from Boxford, Massachusetts. In school, I am interested in the history of science, technology, race, and gender. Outside of school, I like indie-folk music, any Richard Powers novel, and hiking at Acadia National Park.
Thesis title: Assisted Reproductive Technologies, Infertility, and Gender Roles: A Discourse Analysis
Aaron Mills
I’m endlessly fascinated by the politics of memory and how the societal act of remembering or forgetting is a (un)conscious process that reflects systems of structural power, interfacing with potent historical currents that have and continue to shape the world we imagine existed in the past and the world we reside within today. In this, I aspire to tease out how intersectional identities, especially self-conceptions of race, gender, sexuality and linguistic identity, are implicitly or explicitly interwoven in questions of how we imagine the past. Much of my regional and linguistic area concentration focuses on, namely East Asia (Japan, the Koreas, and the Sinosphere) and Southeast Asia. I’m particularly interested in dissecting and disentangling how issues of historical memory, stemming chiefly from the Pacific War and imperial expansion, inform contemporary patterns and processes of the region’s social, economic and political development.
Tentative thesis title: Remembering and Forgetting in the Textbooks: Constructing and Negotiating Contested National Memories and Identities in Post-War Japan
Maya Sachs
My name is Maya Sachs, I am a History major with a minor in Computer Science. I have taken History courses on a variety of subjects/areas but have been particularly interested in histories of the Atlantic World and North American slavery. My thesis title is Analyzing Black (Auto)Biographies of the Antebellum South: Historiography and the Production of Knowledge over Three Centuries.
Peter Sanford
My name is Peter Sanford and I am from Deerfield Massachusetts. I am a History and Math dual major. Personally, I love fitness, sports, and board games. My thesis is The Elastic Empire: The Disruptive Transformation of Malaysia into Britain’s Rubber Plantation Colony and Resulting Ongoing Ethnic Tension.
Cole Tully
My name is Cole Tully; I am majoring in Government and History and am also a member of the baseball team at Colby. A few of my academic interests are the Cold War and post-9/11 periods, and my personal interests center around watching movies, listening to music, and exercising. After college, I plan to attend law school in New England, preferably in Boston. My thesis is titled “Baseball: A Vehicle for Exchange and Collaboration Between Two Complicated Global Powers” and seeks to thoroughly explore the complicated histories, including race, gender, and militarism, between the United States and Japan and explore the often overlooked role of baseball as a form of “soft diplomacy” between the two superpowers.