I support and advise students in both History and Sexuality, Women's & Gender Studies. I offer courses on the History of Sexuality, U.S. Carceral Culture, LGBTQ+ Histories, Revolutionary America, and the History of American Medicine. 

I am currently working on several projects. The first is a two-volume reference work for the Cambridge Histories series published by Cambridge University Press, featuring nearly sixty original essays on the state of the field of the History of Sexuality in the U.S. The second project examines the role of professional medicine in stigmatizing and pathologizing the LGBTQ community from the 19th century to the present.

Degrees

Ph.D., Rutgers University 
B.A., University of Pennsylvania

Publications

Books

The Cambridge History of Sexuality in the United States, Vol. I: Early America and Vol. II: Modern America, eds., Jen Manion and Nicholas L. Syrett (Cambridge University Press, expected publication date 2025).

Female Husbands: A Trans History (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Winner, 2020 British Association for Victorian Studies Book Prize; Finalist, 2021 Lawrence W. Levine Award, Organization of American Historians 

Liberty's Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). Winner, 2016 Mary Kelley Book Prize by the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic

Taking Back the Academy: History of Activism, History as Activism, eds., Jen Manion and Jim Downs (Routledge, 2004).

Select Articles

"A Legacy of Cruelty to Sexual and Gender Minority Groups," The New England Journal of Medicine, Aug. 2024 (with Jessica Halem and Carl J. Streed Jr.).

“Trans and Gender Variant Sexualities in History,” The Cambridge World History of Sexualities, Vol. I, eds., Matthew Kuefler and Merry Wiesner-Hanks (2024).

“Carceral History in the Era of Mass Incarceration,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography  (Oct. 2019).

“Transgender Representations, Identities, and Communities,” The Oxford Handbook of American Women's & Gender History, eds. Ellen Hartigan-O'Connor and Lisa G. Materson (2018).

“Prisons Prior to Mass Incarceration: The Ideological Foundation of Women’s Dependency,” Western New England Law Review, Gender and Incarceration  (2017). 

“Gendered Ideologies of Violence, Authority, and Racial Difference in New York State Penitentiaries, 1796-1848,” Radical History Review (Oct. 2016). 

“Historic Heteroessentialism and Other Orderings in Early America,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (2009).

Honors

Elected Member of the Society of American Historians
Elected Member of the American Antiquarian Society
Organization of American Historians, Distinguished Lecturer Program
Honorary Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society
Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America Grant, Harvard University
Slavery, Abolition, and Resistance Fellowship, Gilder Lehrman Center, Yale University
New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, Research Grant
Amherst College Trustee Faculty Fellowship
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, American Antiquarian Society
Andrew Mellon Foundation Fellowship, Massachusetts Historical Society
Top-25 Significant Queer Women of 2013 by Velvetpark Media, New York City
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Service Award, Connecticut College
Andrew Mellon Foundation Fellowship, Library Company of Philadelphia 
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Scholars in Residence Fellowship
McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Fellowship
The Institute for Research on Women, Rutgers University, Seminar Fellow

Professional Activities

Program Committee Co-chair, Organization of American Historians, 2027
Committee on LGBTQ Status in the Profession, American Historical Association, 2025-28
Editorial Board, University of North Carolina Press, Gender and American Culture Series, 2022-present
Local Arrangements Committee Chair, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, 2023-24
Nominating Committee, Organization of American Historians, 2021-24
Editorial Board, Early American Studies, 2020-23
Council Member, Omohundro Institute, Williamsburg, VA, 2019-23
Editorial Board, The William and Mary Quarterly, Williamsburg, VA, 2019-23
Committee on the Status of LGBTQ Historians and LGBTQ Histories, OAH, 2018-22, Chair 20-21
Steering Committee, The Schlesinger Library Harvard University & Massachusetts Historical Society Boston Seminar on the History of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, 2016-19

Professional Affiliations

American Association for the History of Medicine; American Historical Association; Berkshire Conference of Women Historians; LGBTQ+ History Association; Organization of American Historians; Society for Historians of the Early American Republic