Humanities Scholars

Katherine G. Aiken is Professor of History at the University of Idaho, where she served as History department chair from 2001-2005. She has been Dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences since 2006. She is the recipient of several teaching awards, including the University Award for Teaching Excellence and the Phi Kappa Phi Distinguished Faculty Award. She is the author of articles dealing with Idaho’s first woman member of the United States Congress, Gracie Pfost; environmental history; 20th Century Idaho history; and the Coeur d’Alene mining district. Her books are Harnessing the Power of Motherhood: The National Florence Crittenton Mission, 1883-1925 (University of Tennessee Press, 1998) and Idaho’s Bunker Hill: The Rise and Fall of a Great Mining Company, 1885-1981 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2005). Aiken and Idaho State University colleagues Kevin Marsh and Laura Woodworth-Ney co-wrote a short history of Idaho under the auspices of the Idaho State Historical Society—Idaho: The Enduring Promise (Cherbo Press, 2006). She is a member of the Idaho Humanities Council and the State Department of Education Professional Standards Commission.

 

Sue Armitage, Distinguished Professor of History, Emerita, taught women's history at Washington State University for 30 years. She is the coeditor (with Elizabeth Jameson) of The Women's West (1987) and Writing the Range: Race, Class and Culture in the Women's West (1997), and of numerous articles on western women's history. She is a member of the Washington Women's History Consortium Advisory Board.

 

Karen Blair grew up on Long Island, NY. She attended Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts for her B.A. and SUNY/Buffalo for her M. A. and Ph.D. in History. She has taught at CWU since 1987, balancing teaching with travel and research to explore the history of Pacific Northwest women and the history of women's voluntary associations in America. She devotes her spare time to playing classical piano, including ensemble performance with chamber musicians.

 

Nancy Driscol Engle, PhD is an independent historian, with specialties in U.S. Women's history and in the Pacific Northwest. She is collaborating with Tincan, Spokane, on the Suffrage Centennial Workshop. She serves as the principal scholar working on the grant awarded by the Washington State Consortium of Women's History to the Spokane Chapter of the League of Women Voters. Its focus is on the discussion surrounding the passage of the state and proposed federal equal rights amendment in Eastern Washington.

 

Jennifer Ross-Nazzal currently serves as the Historian for the NASA Johnson Space Center. She earned her Ph.D. in History from Washington State University in 2004. Her manuscript—which is based on her dissertation —Emma Smith DeVoe: Pragmatic Politician, is currently being reviewed by the University of Washington Press for publication. She lives in Houston with her husband, cats, and dog.