I graduated as a history major at Queens in 2005, and worked closely with Dr. Shenton on African history and the history of international development. I pursued this at the Masters level at Dalhousie, working with Dr. Phil Zachernuck, and I wrote my thesison the history of the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania during the early years of socialist construction (1961-1971). Following leads that Dr. Shenton generously provided, for my masters project I was able to interview a group of academics based out of Toronto who had taught at the University in the 1960s.
I am now a PhD student at Stanford University, working with Dr. Richard Roberts. My first few years were taken up with course work, learning Swahili, and preliminary dissertation work in Tanzania in the summers. I am in my fourth year now, just about to finish up my oral exam, and will be heading out for a year of fieldwork in Tanzania beginning in January. My dissertation will on the intellectual and cultural history of development in the late colonial and early postcolonial periods in Tanzania and Zambia. Specifically, I will be studying the history of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway, built in the 1970s but surveyed periodically throughout the colonial and early post colonial periods.
I wanted to thank all of the professors in the history department at Queens, for providing me with such a firm foundation for my continuing studies. Indeed, I learned how to write and how to think at Queens, and both of these skills continue to serve me well!
