INVITED TALKS (Last updated Sep. 2025)

• “Health Humanities at UNL and Beyond.” Invited talk for Interprofessional Academy of Educators of the University of Nebraska Medical Center (April 2, 2025).

• “The Great Plague Scare of 1720.” Invited book talk and discussion for the Göttingen Enlightenment Club of Interdisciplinary Scholars (July 17, 2025).

• “The Great Plague Scare of 1720 in the Franco-Spanish Atlantic World.” Invited talk (with Jim Downs and Mari Webel, moderated by John R. McNeill), Imperial Disease Symposium, Georgetown University, Medical Humanities Initiative (November 13, 2024).

• “Digital Humanities, AI Literacy, and the Historical Profession.” Invited talk, University of Florida (January 24, 2024).

• “Crisis and Contagion: Researching Disease and Disaster in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World,” invited speaker for the Open Digital Seminar in Eighteenth-Century Studies, or ODSECS (December 5, 2023).

• “The Great Plague Scare of 1720,” invited book talk for the Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies (IHB) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna (November 29, 2023).

• “On The Great Plague Scare of 1720.” Invited speaker for panel on “Epidemics and Public Health in Port Cities” (with David Barnes and Andrew Wehrman, moderated by Julia Mansfield) for Villanova University Lepage Center’s webinar series on Cities in Historical Perspectives (November 16, 2023).

• “Why the Medical Humanities?” For Film and Medicine event, UTSA (September 14, 2023).

• “The Great Plague Scare of 1720: Reflections in the COVID Era,” invited book talk and panel (with Christine Adams, Sarah Black, Jessie Hewitt, Junko Takeda) hosted by H-France Salon (June 9, 2023).

• “Digital Humanities for the People(?): Past, Present, and Future,” invited speaker for roundtable “Digital Humanities: A Decade of Experience” for the Society for French Historical Studies conference titled “Digital Humanities: Ways Forward, A Conference in Honor of David Kammerling Smith” (March 20, 2021).

• “History in Times of Crisis: Lessons from the Plague of Provence,” invited speaker for the Phi Alpha Theta Induction Ceremony at Belmont Abbey College (March 5, 2021).

• “Plague, COVID, and Empire: 1720 & 2020,” Texas State University, (November 12, 2020).

• “Health, Culture, and Society,” invited speaker and workshop leader, Bowdoin College (October 26, 2020).

• “Cities and Urban Development in Times of Plague,” for The History of Now: Plagues and Pandemics, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (October 2, 2020).

• “History in the Time of COVID: Reflections on the 1720 Plague of Provence,” invited speaker and workshop leader for the Preyer Lecture Series at Queens University of Charlotte on “History for Our Time” (September 7, 2020).

• “COVID-19: Past, Present, and Future,” for Urgent Matters: Times of Pandemics, co-hosted by Latin America and Latino Studies (LALS) and the Lewis Global Center at Smith College (April 23, 2020).

• “On Environmental Disaster in the Gulf South: Two Centuries of Catastrophe, Risk, and Resilience,” Author book talk at Louisiana Book Festival (November 10, 2018).

• “Disruptions in Time: Historical Reflections on Disaster, Revolution, and the Digital Humanities,” Atlantic Colloquium, Florida International University (October 25, 2018).

• “The Great Plague Scare of 1720: Disaster and Society in the Eighteenth-Century World,” Center for Biology and Society, Arizona State University (August 28, 2018).

• “Understanding Disaster and the Environment in the Long Eighteenth Century,” Symposium on Disasters and Catastrophes in the Enlightenment, Mount Royal University (March 9, 2018).

• “The Spectre of Death: An Early Modern Epidemic in Transnational Context,” for forum, Early Modern Plagues: Histories of Resilience, Arizona State University (April 11, 2017).

• “Plague and Crisis in the Eighteenth Century,” Arizona State University’s Institute for Humanities Research (April 10, 2017).

• Plenary: “Communicating Disease: Information Networks During the Plague of Provence,” The Enlightenment in Motion Symposium, Mount Royal University (March 17, 2017). 

• “Plague Cultures: Managing the 1720 Plague of Provence in France,” Department of Modern Languages, University of Lethbridge (October 3, 2016).

CONFERENCE, SYMPOSIUMS, AND LECTURE EVENTS ORGANIZED

• Organizer: Charles and Linda Wilson Lecture in Humanities in Medicine, featuring Suman Seth, “The Ratio of Mortality: Army Medical Statistics and the Values of Disease,” University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lied Center for Performing Arts (April 16, 2025).

• Organizer: San Antonio Global Health Humanities Symposium (funded by Department of Education UISFL grant). University of Texas at San Antonio (October 21-23, 2024).

IN THE MEDIA (For published op-eds and academic journalism, see Publications on CV)

Print Media Interviews (National and Local)

• The Verge: Invited interview with Josh Dzieza for article, “How AI Can Make History” (Feb. 15, 2024).

• The Conversationalist: Invited interview with Elena Sheppard for article on “‘Patria y Vida’: the Cuban song that has become a global rallying cry” (April 1, 2021).

• The Atlantic: Invited Q & A with Alexis C. Madrigal, “Why the Gulf Coast Is Uniquely Vulnerable to Disasters: It isn’t just because of the weather, a historian argues” (August 29, 2017).

• Lethbridge News Now: Interviewed for feature article on “Learning the lessons of a catastrophic storm,” by Geoff Smith (August 29, 2017).

Radio Interviews

• BBC World Newsday: Live interview with Bola Mosuro on the dangers of President Trump’s plan to prematurely “Open Up America Again” (April 17, 2020).

• CJOC FM Lethbridge News 94.1: Radio interview on the history of modern disasters and Hurricane Harvey (August 30, 2017).

Television Appearances/Interviews

• Univision: Spanish-language interview on the history of heat waves in South-Central Texas (July 14, 2022).

• Univision: Spanish-language interview on the history of the “Spanish” Flu as we battle COVID-19 (April 15, 2020).

• CTV Lethbridge: Interview on vulnerability of Gulf South to natural hazards (August 31, 2017).

• Al Jazeera English “NewsHour”: Live appearance to discuss disaster management of Hurricane Harvey in context of Gulf South’s larger history of disaster (August 30, 2017).

Podcasts Interviews

• New Books Network podcast: “The Great Plague Scare of 1720” with Donna Anderson (Nebraska) and Isidro Gonzalez (Claremont McKenna) (December 3, 2024).

• COVID Calls, Disaster STS Network: Historians’ Roundtable on “Pandemics Across Time” with Scott Knowles (Drexel University), Sandra Eder (Berkeley), and Tiago Saraiva (Drexel) (January 26, 2021).

• Cited Media’s Secondary Symptoms Podcast: Interview for “Return to Normalcy?” episode, with Jay Cockburn (July 27, 2020).

• Cited Media’s Secondary Symptoms Podcast: Interview for “Pandemic Amnesia” episode on the history of public health crises, disaster, and memory, with Gordon Katic (May 7, 2020).

• Cited Media’s Secondary Symptoms Podcast: Appearance on “Not So Fast” episode on the history of pandemics, with Gordon Katic (April 30, 2020).

• COVID Calls, Disaster STS Network: Interview on “Pandemics in History” with Scott Knowles (Drexel) and Christienna Fryar (Goldsmiths, University of London) (March 30, 2020).

• Reddit’s AskHistorians Podcast: Interview on “La Peste! The Great Plague of Marseille,” with Andrés Pertierra of UW Madison (May 6, 2017). 

• Catastrophe is Our Bedtime Story Podcast: Interview on “Catastrophe in the Age of Revolutions,” with Michael Egan of McMaster University (October 28, 2016).

RECENT CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION (SINCE 2020)

• Chair: “Medicine and Culture in Medieval Europe,” American Historical Association, Chicago, IL (January 8-11, 2026).

• Roundtable: “How to Publish in an Academic Journal,” American Historical Association, Chicago, IL (January 8–11, 2026).

• Chair: “State of the Field: European Urban History,” Urban History Association, Los Angeles, CA (October 9-12, 2025).

• Roundtable: “Are Epidemics Disasters?” for “Urban Disasters: Perspectives from the Long Durée and Personal Experience,” Urban History Association, Los Angeles, CA (October 9-12, 2025).

• Roundtable: “10 Years of Age of Revolutions: A Roundtable,” Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, Auburn, AL (February 28, 2025).

• Workshop: “Op-Ed Workshop,” American Historical Association, New York, NY (January 3-6, 2025).

• Roundtable: “AI: Possibilities and Perils for Historical Research,” American Historical Association, New York, NY (January 3-6, 2025).

• Chair: “Disaster, Health, and Recovery After War,” James A. Rawley Graduate Conference in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (October 3-4, 2024).

• Roundtable: “How Should H-France Support Digital Humanities Work? A Community Conversation,” Society for French Historical Studies, New York, NY (March 14-17, 2024).

• Roundtable: “Generative AI in French History, Teaching, and Research: A ChatGPT hands-on workshop,” Society for French Historical Studies, New York, NY (March 14-17, 2024).

• Roundtable organizer and chair: “AI and the Historical Profession: Applications and Implications,” American Historical Association, San Francisco, CA (January 4-7, 2024).

• Roundtable: “So, You Want to Publish in an Academic Journal?,” American Historical Association, San Francisco, CA (January 4-7, 2024).

• Roundtable: “Publishing in an Academic Journal,” Western Association of Women Historians, Costa Mesa, CA (April 21-23, 2022).

• Organizer and paper: “The Sète Affair of 1721: Crisis and Resistance in the Early Eighteenth-Century French Colonies,” American Historical Association, New Orleans, LA (January 6-9, 2022), for session on Epidemics in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions.

• Chair and commentator: “Material and Digital Approaches to Labor, Health, and the Political Ecology of Slavery,” Omohundro Institute Annual Conference, Williamsburg, VA (June 18-20, 2021).

• Co-organizer and co-chair: The Age of Revolutions Webinar on Miguel La Serna’s Masses and Arms: Peru's Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, co-hosted with Smith College and UNC Press (July 23, 2020).

• Organizer and paper: “Plague and Crisis in the Eighteenth Century: Reactions to the Plague of Provence in Atlantic Port Cities,” Port Cities in the Atlantic Conference, Charleston, SC (May 14-16, 2020). Accepted, but conference canceled due to COVID-19.

• Roundtable: “Coping in the Midst of a Pandemic,” Town Hall on COVID-19, University of Texas at San Antonio (April 8, 2020).

• Organizer and paper: “Revolution as Disaster,” Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, Tallahassee, FL (February 27-29, 2020).

• Chair: “Sulphur and Sailing: Science and Medicine in the Revolutionary Era,” Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, Tallahassee, FL (February 27-29, 2020).