MA in History

A Naval officer, helicopter pilot and published scholar

Dan Martins, who leads a Naval helicopter squadron in Hawaii, published his first scholarly essay with the help and guidance of Mason history faculty.

Honoring Distinguished Alumni

In fall 2017, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the religious studies program honored Andrew Pedry for his exemplary career.

2021 Distinguished Alumni - Women and Gender Studies

Eric Gonzaba is an assistant professor of American studies at California State University, Fullerton where he teaches courses on the history of race and sexuality in America.

National Park Service historian

After graduating with his Masters in History, Erik Johnson has worked as a historian for the National Park Service, first at Denali National Park in Alaska, then in the Alaska Regional Office, and most recently as Regional Historian for the National Capital Region in Washington, DC.

Non-profit consultant & non-violence educator

Pam Smith is executive director of the Addie Wyatt Center for Nonviolence Training in Chicago. Smith's MA degree helped her get consulting positions on interpretive exhibits at historic and other public sites, and to co-edit a book about Martin Luther King's Chicago Freedom Movement. She has also put her training to work in teaching nonviolent conflict resolution.

University lecturer

After completing his MA at GMU, Tariq Khan entered the PhD program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, graduating in 2021. He is currently a Lecturer in the History of Psychology at Yale University. In 2023 he published The Republic Shall Be Kept Clean: How Settler Colonial Violence Shaped Antileft Repression.

Policy analyst, agricultural development, sustainable agriculture

Ann Steensland completed her MA in History part-time while working for the the Alliance to End Hunger. Since then she has continued to work in the area of sustainable agriculture for the Global Harvest Initiative, the Global Agricultural Productivity Initiative at Virginia Tech and the Mosaic Company Foundation.

Navy veteran found a lifelong calling.

After service in the Navy, Farrington earned his MA and landed a position as a staff historian at a naval museum. "The emphasis on cultural history at GMU," he writes, "has prepared me to delve into subjects that the average military history buff would dare not touch."

2017 Fall Distinguished Alumni - History and Art History

Sharon Deane received her master’s degree in history, magna cum laude, from Mason in 2010, complementing a career that has included work in interior design, project management, facilities management, and museum education.

Prize-winning author & professor of history

Tyson Reeder won the 2025 George Washington Prize for the best new book on the nation's founding era for his book Serpent in Eden: Foreign Meddling and Partisan Politics in James Madison’s America. Reeder is an assistant professor of history at Brigham Young University. His research focuses on early American transnational and international history. He was formerly an assistant professor at the University of Virginia, where he worked as an editor of The Papers of James Madison.

2019 Distinguished Alumni - History and Art History

Trevor Owens is the first Head of Digital Content Management at the Library of Congress. He is a Public Historian in Residence at American University, and teaches graduate seminars in digital preservation as a lecturer for the University of Maryland’s College of Information, where he is a Research Affiliate with the Digital Curation Innovation Center.

Interactive Web Manager at WETA

A former National Park Service guide, Mark used the MA program to advance his career. Now Mark works at WETA, a public television station, where among other duties he manages Boundary Stones (http://blogs.weta.org/boundarystones/about), WETA's blog about local history.

Public historian

Robert Orrison is Historic Preservation Division Manager with Prince William County. He previously worked at the Sully Historic Site in Fairfax County, and as manager of the Brentsville Courthouse and Ben Lomond historic sites.

2012 Roy Rosenzweig Oustanding Alumnus

2021 Distinguished Alumni - History and Art History

Rick Gerrard is vice president of Phoenix Sister Cities Inc. and deputy chief of protocol for the City of Phoenix. Phoenix Sister Cities is a non-profit corporation that manages ten sister city relationships on behalf of the city. He has served in this capacity since 1999.