RESEARCH INTERESTS 

Cold War History 

Presidential History 

Science, Technology, and the National Security State 

TEACHING INTERESTS 

History of the Cold War 

United States Foreign Relations 

History of Latin America 

OTHER 

Book Review Editor, The Journal of Mississippi History, 2024-present 

• Mississippi Humanities Council, Mississippi State University Humanities Teacher of the Year, 2011 

• Phi Alpha Theta, Gamma Nu Chapter, Outstanding Teaching Award, Mississippi State University, 2009 

• College of Arts & Sciences Humanities and Arts Research Grants, Mississippi State University, 1996, 2002, 2010 

• U.S. National Science Foundation, Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, 1989-1990 

Books: 

Scientists and Statesmen: President Eisenhower’s Science Advisers and National Security Policy (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Republic of Letters, 2015) 

Culture, Power and Diplomacy: New Directions in the History of National and International Security (Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012), co-editor with Mary Kathryn Barbier 

The Eisenhower Presidency, 1953-1961 (New York and Harlow, U.K.:  Longman, 2002) 

Articles: 

“‘Walking a Tight-Rope’: The Eisenhower Administration and the Third World,” Proceedings of the Association of Third World Studies, Twentieth Annual Meeting (2003): 43-47 

“James Killian, the Technological Capabilities Panel, and the Emergence of President Eisenhower’s ‘Scientific-Technological Elite,’” Diplomatic History 24 (Winter 2000): 57-78 

“Containing the Military-Industrial Complex:  President Eisenhower's Science Advisers and the Case of the Nuclear-Powered Aircraft,” Essays in Economic and Business History, 19 (1996):  279-89 

Book Chapters: 

“World War II and the New Deal for American Science,” in Johnathan Fennell, Alex Wilson, and Richard Hammond, eds., Revisiting the Peoples’ War: The Second World War in Socio-Political Perspective (Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022), 162-84.   

“Eisenhower’s Farewell Address in history and memory,” in Michael Patrick Cullinane and Sylvia Ellis, eds., Constructing Presidential Legacy: How We Remember the American President (Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2018), 76-102 

“Leadership and Decision Making,” in Chester J. Pach, ed., Blackwell Companion to Dwight D. Eisenhower (New Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017), 165-89 

“Dwight D. Eisenhower,” in Ken Gormly, ed., The Presidents and the Constitution: A Living History (New York: New York University Press, 2016, reprinted 2024), 443-58 

“In Search of ‘some big, imaginative plan’: the Eisenhower administration and American Middle East Strategy after Suez,” in Simon C. Smith, ed., Reassessing Suez 1956: New Perspectives on the Crisis and its Aftermath (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2008), 179-94 

Essays: 

“Loyalty and Dissent in Mississippi during the Great War, 1917-1918,” Mississippi History Now: Online publication of the Mississippi Historical Society, June 2005, at: http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/features/feature64/Great_War.htm 

“Truman as Parochial Nationalist,” Reviews in American History 31 (September 2003): 457-62 

Encyclopedia chapters: 

“Dwight D. Eisenhower and American Foreign Policy,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History (Oxford University Press, published August 2019), doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.750 

“The Eisenhower Presidency,” Encyclopedia of the U.S. Presidency (Santa Barbara, CA: Facts on File, 2012) 

“Panama,” chapter in World Conflicts and Confrontations, vol. 4: The Americas, Charles F. Bahmueller, ed., (Pasadena, CA:  Salem Press, 1999), 150-60 

Ph.D. History, The Ohio State University, 1993 

M.A. History, The Ohio State University, 1986 

B.A. Honors, Modern History, University of Durham (Dunelm), UK, 1984