Welcome from the Department Chair, Luis Alvarez

Hi Everyone!

As Chair of the Department of History, I am delighted to welcome you to the 2024-25
academic year!  This is an exciting time in our Department. Our amazing faculty, staff,
students, alumni, and community partners help make History a wonderful place to work,
study, and call home. It is my hope that you will help grow and strengthen our
community by enrolling in classes, attending events, or just dropping by our beautiful
facilities in the Arts and Humanities Building to say hello.  Whether in person or online, I
hope to see you soon!

I am particularly excited to share news of our newest faculty colleagues! Professor
Aniket De focuses on racial segregation and anti-colonialism in modern South Asia,
particularly in relation to the histories of race and imperialism in India, South Africa, and
the Indian Ocean World. Professor Heather Ponchetti Daly specializes in political,
economic, environmental, and social histories of Native Americans in California,
including how 20 th century federal Indian policies and laws affected the trajectory of
Native American sovereignty and societies in all aspects of tribal life. Both join our trio
of new faculty enter their second year after coming on board in Ay 2023-24. They are:
Professor Bright Gyamfi, a scholar of West African and African Diaspora intellectual
history, nationalism, Pan-Africanism, Black internationalism, and economic
development. Professor Sara Kozameh, expert in the history of the Cuban Revolution,
social movements and popular uprisings, agrarian history, and Black radicalism. And,
Professor Julia Lewandoski, an historian of early Native America who uses law and
cartography to focus on Indigenous nations as they engaged with European empires
and emerging nation-states. We thrilled to welcome all of them into our faculty ranks
and hope you will soon have the opportunity to meet them, take their courses, and read
their amazing research.

Our forty full-time faculty members teach thousands of undergraduate students a year;
train Ph.D students to become the next generation of professors; publish award-winning
research; and engage the world through a range of public and digital history projects.
We embrace the many different pathways of doing history and invite you to peruse our
website to learn more about what we do!

Coming together as community is especially important now. The last several years have
been challenging for all of us.  We have witnessed the devastating impact of the Covid-
19 pandemic, on-going racial tensions and political divisiveness, the deepening effects
of the global climate crisis, and so much more. Our goal in the Department of History is
to work together to ensure everyone has the opportunity to thrive.  Let us share our
individual and collective resilience, strength, empathy, and courage to inspire and
support one another.  What better place than the Department of History for a shared
project that seeks to understand the past, make sense of the present, and imagine a
better future?

My colleagues, staff, and I are excited to be a part of this effort. Please consider this an
invitation to join us!  I am always open to conversation, questions, and ideas, so please

Don’t hesitate to be in touch.  Wishing everyone a fantastic year full of health, success,
and happiness!

Luis Alvarez
Professor and Chair
Department of History