About
I am a scholar of the sea and shore. My work focuses on the social, cultural, and environmental history of the Atlantic Archipelago coasts, with special attention to the interplay between extreme weather, shipwreck disasters and the coastal communities affected by them. I’ve always lived in coastal zones, growing up in Alaska on the shores of Cook Inlet and the Gulf of Alaska; I currently live on the English Channel, beaming out my mentoring and teaching of naval and maritime history via distance education to students around the world. I maintain a strong interest in distance learning pedagogy and lifelong learning. Education
Ph.D. in Maritime History, Greenwich Maritime Institute, University of Greenwich (UK)
M.A. History, with a Maritime History emphasis, University of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada)
M.Ed. College Student Personnel Administration, University of Alaska – Fairbanks
B.A. History, minor Anthropology, University of Alaska – Fairbanks Publications
Forum Article: ‘What Do You Do With a Shipwrecked Sailor?: Extreme Weather, Shipwreck, and Civic Responsibility in Nineteenth Century Liverpool’, Victorian Review, Vol. 47, Issue 1 (Spring 2021).
Chapter: ‘Extreme Weather and the Growth of Charity: Insights from the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners’ Royal Benevolent Society, 1839-60’ in Georgina Endfield and Lucy Veale (eds.), Cultural Histories, Memories and Extreme Weather: A Historical Geography Perspective. London: Routledge, 2018.
Chapter: ‘Charity and Philanthropy in a Coastal World: Scottish Fishing Communities and the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners’ Royal Benevolent Society, 1839-48’, in David Worthington (ed.), The New Coastal History: Cultural and Environmental Perspectives from Scotland and Beyond. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, September 2017.
Article: ‘The Unlucky Wrecker: William Pearse of St Gennys, Cornwall’, Troze: The Online Journal of the National Maritime Museum Cornwall, Vol. 5, No. 2 (September 2014). (Peer-reviewed, Open access)
Chapter: ‘The Cornish Arundells and their Right of Wreck‘ in the New Maritime History of Cornwall, edited by Philip Payton, Director of the Institute of Cornish Studies, University of Exeter, and Helen Doe, Centre for Maritime Historical Studies, University of Exeter, 2014.
Query: ‘East India Company’s “Lacks”, The Mariner’s Mirror, Vol. 99, No. 3 (August 2013), p. 350.
Book: Cornish Wrecking, 1700-1860: Reality and Popular Myth, London: Boydell and Brewer, 2010. Received the Holyer An Gof 2011 Highly Commended Award for Non-Fiction. Reviews have been highly positive.
Article: ‘“Neglectful or Worse:’” A Lurid Tale of a Lighthouse Keeper and Wrecking,’ Troze: The Online Journal of the National Maritime Museum Cornwall, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Sept 2008).
Chapter: “Mentoring Undergraduate Research Students in History,” in Kenrick Mock and Eric S. Murphy, eds. Mentoring Undergraduates in Research and Scholarship. Anchorage: University of Alaska Anchorage, 2008. Projects
Shipwrecks and Coastal Communities Memberships
British Commission for Maritime History
Society for Nautical Research
Royal Historical Society
European Society for Environmental History
