Jason Heppler

U.S. History: North American West and Great Plains; 19th and 20th century US; environmental history; history of capitalism; digital history

Jason A. Heppler is a historian and the senior developer at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM). He earned his PhD in History from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln specializing in the North American West, with particular interests in urban history, politics and political culture, and environmental and climate history. His second book, Silicon Valley and the Environmental Inequalities of High-Tech Urbanism (University of Oklahoma Press, 2024), explores the postwar growth of the cities of Silicon Valley and the ways that their growth led to ecological disaster and introduced social inequality.

He is a co-editor on Digital Community Engagement: Partnering Communities with the Academy (University of Cincinnati Press, 2020) with Rebecca Wingo and Paul Schadewald. This edited volume brings together cutting-edge campus-community partnerships with a focus on digital projects. Through a series of case studies authored by academics and their community partners, contributors explore models for digital community engagement that leverages new media through reciprocal partnerships. The contributions to the volume stand at the crossroads of digital humanities, public history, and community engagement, drawing ideas, methods, and practices from various disciplines to inform our public partnerships. By highlighting these projects the book provides other institutions, cultural heritage organizations, universities, and communities models for successful engagement.

He received his PhD in American history from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2016, and joined George Mason University in 2021. Prior to joining GMU, he served as the Digital Engagement Librarian at the the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and before that the Academic Technology Specialist with the Center for Interdisciplinary Digital Research at Stanford University Libraries and a member of the research staff at the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford University.

Current Research

The Sagebrush Rebellion, ranching, public lands, and politics in the Northern Plains.
Biographies on Wallace Stegner, Walter Prescott Webb, and Mari Sandoz.

Selected Publications

Silicon Valley and the Environmental Inequalities of High-Tech Urbanism (University of Oklahoma Press, 2024)

Digital Community Engagement: Partnering Communities with the Academy (University of Cincinnati Press, 2020) - Winner of the 2021 National Council on Public History (NCPH) Book Award

Farooq, Omer, Jason A. Heppler, and Kate M. Ehrig-Page, “Creating Capacity for Research Data Services at Regional Universities: A Case Study,” in Teaching Research Data Management (ALA Editions, 2022) https://www.alastore.ala.org/trdm.

Blackburn, Heidi and Jason A. Heppler, “Who Is Writing About Women in STEM in Higher Education in the United States? A Citation Analysis of Gendered Authorship,” Frontiers in Psychology 10 (January 2020) https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02979.

Grants and Fellowships

Affiliate Fellow, Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Courses Taught

HIST 694 Digital Public History (syllabus)

Education

Ph.D, History, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2016)
M.A., History, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2009)
B.A., History & Economics, South Dakota State University (2007)

In the Media

Drafting the Past, June 2024.

Greenhouse Environmental Humanities Book Talk, Greenhouse Center for Environmental Humanities, University of Stavanger, Norway, April 2024