Diana L. Di Stefano
Associate Professor
Department of History and Northern Studies Program
University of Alaska - Fairbanks
570-713-9953
Education
Ph.D., University of Colorado-Boulder, Summer 2007
Dissertation: “Avalanche Country: Nature, Community, and Culture in the Mountain West, 1834-1910.”
Adviser: Peter Boag
Master of Arts: University of Montana-Missoula, December 2000
Thesis: “There’s Going to Be Hell to Pay? An Evaluation of Tourism in Whitefish, Montana”
Adviser: Dan Flores
Bachelor of Arts: The Colorado College, May 1993, Major: History
Thesis: “Witch Trials of the Seventeenth Century: Man Against Woman and Nature”
Adviser: Anne Hyde
Specializations
American West, Environment, Disasters
Academic Positions
Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, AK, Fall 2011-present
Assistant Professor of History and Environmental Studies, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA, Fall 2007-Spring 2011
Visiting Assistant Professor of History, Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA, Fall 2006 -Spring 2007
Publications (Peer Reviewed)
Article: “In Search of the Sublime: Finding Transcendence in the Mountain West, 1880-1920,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History (Autumn 2014): 3-19
Book: Encounters in Avalanche Country, A History of Survival in the Mountain West, 1820-1920, University of Washington Press, the Emil and Kathleen Sick Series in Western History and Biography (Fall 2013)
Article: “Disasters, Railway Workers, and the Law in Avalanche Country, 1880-1910,” Environmental History (July 2009): 476-501
Article: “Alfred Packer’s World: Risk, Responsibility, and the Place of Experience in Mountain Culture, 1873-1907,” Journal of Social History 40 (Fall 2006): 181-204
Article: “Tourism, Industry, and Community Development: Whitefish, Montana, 1903-2003,” Environmental Practice 6 (March 2004): 63-70
Other Publications
Op-Ed: The Seattle Times, “Was the Oso Mudslide Simply an Act of God?” 28 March 2014
Book Review: Michael Childers, Colorado Powder Keg: Ski Resorts and the Environmental Movement (University of Kansas Press, 2012), for Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Summer 2013
Book Review: Devastation and Renewal: An Environmental History of Pittsburgh and Its Region, Joel A. Tarr, ed. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003), for Journal of Economic History 64 (September 2004): 913-914
Encyclopedia Entries: The Donner Party and the Wellington Slide, in Ballard Campbell, ed., Encyclopedia of Disasters, Accidents, and Crises in American History (Facts on File, 2007)
Publications in Progress
Book: Flesh-Eating Frontiers: Cannibalism, Race, and Empire In Nineteenth Century America
Courses Taught University of Alaska-Fairbanks
History of the American West, North American Disasters; Perspectives on History; American Environmental History; United States History, 1815-1877; United States History, 1877-1945; Modern World History; Environmental Thinkers; Sex in Western History
Additional Courses Taught
Frontiers and Borderlands; American Indian Writers; Environmental History; Colonial America; 19th Century America; 20th Century America; History of the Northwest; Foundation Seminar (for first year students); California Environmental History
Conference Presentations
Western History Association Conference, “Flesh-Eating Frontiers: Cannibalism in the Nineteenth Century American Imagination,” Tucson, AZ, October 2013
Thinking Mountains: Interdisciplinary Conference on Mountain Studies, “Encounters in Avalanche Country: Environment, Local Knowledge, and Disaster,” Edmonton, AB, December 2012
American Historical Association Conference, “Claiming Nature Through Risky Behavior: How the Leisure Class Appropriated Mountains and Found Transcendence in the Process,” Boston, MA, January 2011
American Society for Environmental History Conference, Teaching Environmental History Roundtable, Portland, OR, March 2010
Pacific Northwest History Conference, Chair and Comments, “Exploration, Discovery, Expansion, and World View: Myth and Reality,” Tacoma, WA, April 2007
Western History Association Conference, “Avalanches and Railroad Worker Identity: Natural Disasters and the Culture of Risk Taking in British Columbia,” St. Louis, MO, October 2006
Organization of American Historians’ Conference, “Who’s To Blame? Risk and Responsibility in Avalanche Country, 1859-1893,” Boston, MA, March 2004
American Society for Environmental History Conference, “When Play Becomes Big Business: the Impacts of Fifty Years of Skiing in Whitefish, Montana, 1946-1996,” Denver, CO, March 2002
Invited Presentations
Book Reading: Encounters in Avalanche Country, Third Place Books, Seattle, WA,
9 December 2013.
Book Reading for the Sick Series in Western History and Biography: Encounters in Avalanche Country,University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 29 October 2013.
Book Reading: Encounters in Avalanche Country, Tattered Cover Bookstore, Denver, CO, 16 October 2013.
Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activity Seminar, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, “Encounters in Avalanche Country, 1880-1920,” April 2013
Radio Interview, on KFBX, on “Encounters in Avalanche Country, 1880-1920,” April 2013
Social Science Research Group, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, “Claiming Nature Through Risky Behavior: How the Leisure Class Appropriated Mountains and Found Transcendence in the Process,” April 2012
Anthropology Colloquium, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, “Flesh-Eating Frontiers: Cannibalism in the Mountain West, 1846-1874,” September 2011
Focus the Nation (environmental “teach-in”) at Bucknell University, “The Human-Nature Relationship and the Future of Sustainability,” January 2009
ITEC Seminar, “Using Film in the Classroom,” at Bucknell University, January 2008 and 2009
Focus the Nation (environmental “teach-in”) at Bucknell University, “Historical Response to Environmental Crisis and a Historian’s Response to the question of “Can we afford NOT to stop global climate change?” January 2008
31st Annual Montana History Conference, “Debunking the Devil’s Bargain in Whitefish, Montana,” Whitefish, MT, October 2004
27th Annual Montana History Conference, “There’s Going to Be Hell to Pay? An Evaluation of Tourism in Whitefish, Montana,” West Yellowstone, MT, November 2000
Grants and Awards
Summer Sessions Travel Grant – University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Fall 2013
Travel Grant, Dean’s Office – University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Spring 2013
Travel Grant, Provost’s Office – Faculty Development, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Fall 2012
Arthur T. Fathauer Chair, Endowed Chair (revolving chair, one year position), University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Fall 2011-Spring 2012
Participant in National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute: Nature and History at the Nation’s Edge: A Field Institute in Environmental and Borderlands History, Summer 2009
John Topham and Susan Redd Butler Faculty Research Award, Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, 2009
Dean’s Travel Grant, Bucknell University, to attend the Western History Association Conference, Salt Lake City, UT, Fall 2008
Dean’s Travel Grant, Bucknell University, to attend the Association of Environmental Historians’ Conference, Boise, ID, Spring 2007
Research Grant, Bean Fellowship, Department of History, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2004-2005
Research Grant, Charles Redd Summer Grants for Graduate Students, Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, 2004
Washington Foundation Award for Historical Excellence, Montana Historical Society, October 2000
Examples of Service
Elected to Faculty Senate, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Fall 2014-Spring 2017
Appointed to Faculty Development, Assessment, and Improvement Committee, Fall 2014
Facilitator, Faculty Learning Community: Strategies for Early Career Faculty Success (through the Office of Faculty Development and the Provost’s Office), University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Fall 2014-Spring 2015
Facilitator, Faculty Learning Community: Teaching Strategies for Early Career Faculty (through the Office of Faculty Development and the Provost’s Office), University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Fall 2013-Spring 2014
Curriculum Council, College of Liberal Arts, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Fall 2012-Spring 2015
Committee on the Status of Women, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Fall 2012-Spring 2015
Co-Chair, Department of History, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, ad-hoc committee on Curricular Development – Spring 2013- present
Composition Council, Bucknell University, 2010-2011 (writing curriculum review)
Faculty Advisory Committee for the McKenna Summer Environmental Awards (grant
awarding committee for faculty and student research), Bucknell University, 2007-2011
Environmental Studies Steering Committee, Bucknell University, 2007- 2011
Campus Greening Council, Bucknell University, appointed to 3 year term in spring 2008
Environmental Studies Committee, Pacific Lutheran University, 2006-2007
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