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  • Primarily an Early American historian, I also have subsidiary interests in African-American history and the study of the Atlantic world. I am a newcomer to the department, having been appointed in 2000 (although I was once an Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Scholar at Hopkins). I came from the College of William and Mary, where I was a professor of history and editor of the William and Mary Quarterly. My publications include: Colonial Chesapeake Society (1988), Strangers within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire (1991), Cultivation and Culture: Work and the Shaping of Afro-American Culture in the Americas (1993), and Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry (1998). Fellowships include: Institute of Early American History and Culture, Charles Warren Center at Harvard University, John Carter Brown Library, American Antiquarian Society, the Huntington Library, American Council of Learned Societies, and Guggenheim Foundation. Prizes include: Association of Caribbean Historians Best Article Prize (1995-1997); American Historical Association, Albert J. Beveridge Award and Wesley-Logan Prize (1998); Organization of American Historians, Elliott Rudwick Prize (1999); South Carolina Historical Society Prize (1999); Columbia University, Bancroft Prize (1999); Library of Virginia Literary Nonfiction Award (1999); Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Yale University, Frederick Douglass Prize (1999); Southern Historical Association, Frank L. and Harriet C. Owsley Prize (1999); and American Philosophical Society, Jacques Barzun Prize (1999). My major project is provisionally entitled, "Jamaican Small World: White and Black in the Eighteenth Century." My microhistorical study has four major goals: to explore the process of colonization and the transition from homeland to adopted land in personal and comprehensive terms; to capture the routines and rhythms of daily life in southwestern Jamaica and related corners of the Atlantic world; to probe an interracial world of plain folk; and to paint a vivid portrait of the individuality of ordinary people and the particularity of one local community. My main informant is Thomas Thistlewood, a man of no particular distinction except that he kept one of the most detailed records of plantation life in existence. I have also a number of subsidiary plans e.g. I am co-editing a book, "The Black Experience and the British Empire," for Oxford University Press (to be submitted 2001) and another "Arming Slaves: From the Classical Era to the American Civil War" for Yale University Press (also to be submitted 2001). I have also guest edited (with David Eltis) a special issue, "New Perspectives on The Transatlantic Slave Trade," set to appear in William and Mary Quarterly, LVIII (January 2001).
  • Paul Finkelman, the President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy at Albany Law School, is the ninth most cited legal historian according to "Brian Leiter's Law School Rankings." He received his B.A. in American Studies from Syracuse University (1971), his Ph.D. in U.S. history from Chicago (1976), and was a fellow in law and humanities at Harvard Law School (1982-83). Professor Finkelman is the editor of the *The Political Lincoln: An Encyclopedia* (2009) published by CQ Press and is an advisor to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. He is the author or editor of more than twenty-five books and more than one hundred and fifty scholarly articles on Abraham Lincoln, Constitutional law; American legal history; civil rights, civil liberties, race relations, freedom of religion and separation of church and state; the law of American slavery; Thomas Jefferson, the war on drugs; the electoral college; freedom of speech and press; the second amendment, American race relations, and baseball and law. His books include: *Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson* (M.E. Sharpe, 2001) *Dred Scott v. Sandford: A Brief History* (Bedford, 1995); *Landmark Decisions of the United States Supreme Court* (CQ Press, 2003); *The Library of Congress Desk Reference to the Civil War *(Simon and Schuster, 2002), *American Legal History: Cases and Materials* (Oxford, 3rd ed. 2004) and *A March of Liberty: A Constitutional History of the United States* (Oxford, 2002).
  • Professor Winch received her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College. Her areas of specialty are African-American history, in both the United States and the Caribbean; the Early American Republic, and maritime history.
  • Regine O. Jackson is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Richmond. She specializes in race and ethnic relations, American immigration, and urban ethnography. Her current research project is titled "No Longer Visible: Haitian Immigrants in the 'New Boston.'"
  • Neil Giuliano serves as president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). Mr. Giuliano joined GLAAD in September 2005. Under Mr. Giuliano's stewardship, GLAAD has taken the lead on many pressing issues for the LGBT community. He is considered among the nation's most visible and effective leaders of the movement for LGBT equality, earning recognition as one of Instinct magazine's Top 25 of 2005 and one of Out magazine's Out 100 in 2006, which recognizes the 100 most influential people in gay culture. Prior to GLAAD, Mr. Giuliano served for 10 years as the mayor of Tempe, Arizona and also had a 25-year career as a senior administrator at Arizona State University, the largest public university in the United States. As mayor of one of the largest cities in the generally conservative state of Arizona, Mr. Giuliano was among the nation's most visible openly gay elected officials, whose track record of successful coalition building won him endorsement by the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund and overwhelming public support.
  • Gladys Rodriguez-Parker is the District Director for U.S. Representative James P. McGovern (3rd. Congressional District), and was recently also given the title of Director of Community and Intergovernmental Relations. She is the first Latino woman to hold such a post in Massachusetts. Born in Westfield, she spent her youth in Puerto Rico until age 12, when she moved to South Boston and lived in the D-Street projects. She later moved with her family to Worcester, attended Worcester's public schools and became involved in community service projects. She has lived in Worcester since her youth and is known for her passion working on behalf of her community and Latino issues. A tireless worker, Ms. Rodriguez-Parker was one of the founding members of the Worcester Working Coalition for Latino Students (WWCLS) and has been a relentless advocate on behalf of educational equity. Her work with the WWCLS has focused in the areas of communication, community organizing, and development. She has been an invaluable advocacy resource for the Latino Education Institute at the Massachusetts State House. Her credibility and passion for community issues has made her one of the most respected community activists in the City of Worcester. Ms. Rodriguez Parker earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in history and political science and a master's degree in human services management from Worcester State College. She has also studied at the Women in Higher Education Leadership Institute of Wellesley College. Ms. Rodriguez-Parker has served on the boards of many non-profit organizations. She has substantial experience in the management of non-profit agencies.
  • Peter Roby was named Northeastern's ninth Athletics Director on June 21, 2007. Roby, former head basketball coach at Harvard University, marketing vice president at Reebok, and since 2002, Director of Northeastern's Center for the Study of Sport in Society, brings broad experience in unique perspective to his new position. Roby has been referenced extensively in print, television and radio media all over the world and his opinion pieces have been published on the editorial pages of the *Boston Globe*, the* Indianapolis Star*, the *Dallas Morning News* and the *Oregonian*. In October of 2007, Roby was named one of the 100 Most Influential Sports Educators in America by the Institute of International Sport. Roby is a 1979 graduate of Dartmouth College where he was co-captain of the basketball team and earned a bachelor's degree in Government. A native of New Britain, Connecticut, Roby lives with his wife, Sandra, and children, Kayla, Peter, and Jon Paul, in Newton, Mass.