Career Connections

Career Connections is an opportunity for history students to learn about our alumni and the careers that they have chosen, as well as a place for our alumni to make connections with each other. Alumni may be contacted via the email provided or through the department when no email is listed.

If you wish to become a career connection, please fill out this questionnaire and send a headshot to history.department@rochester.edu.

Michael Amato

2001, BA in History

Current Position
Adjudicator, Department of Defense

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
JD, Suffolk Law School

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
Best degree at UofR.

Adam Castellani Cheman

1996, BA in History /BA in Economics

Current Position
Head of External Relations / Communications - Simudyne (AI / Investment Banking and Global Markets)

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
It helped with learning to think critically, writing and communicating. By contextualising what we are doing now and in the future with the past we are at our most effective as a species. Ignorance of the past has caused us to fail repeatedly.

Contact: adamcastellani@yahoo.com 

Barry Cohen

1966, BA in History

Recent Positions
CEO Lehigh Valley Academy Regional Charter School (Retired)
Vice President for Finance and CFO, Centenary College, NJ (Retired)
Interim Vice President for Finance and Administration  Westchester Community College, NY
President, Parkland Community Library Board of Directors, PA

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
                                            MBA, Columbia University EdD, Teachers College, Columbia University

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
It gave me a life long interest in education.  The liberal arts and history fostered an interest in the big picture, curiosity, and actively seeking alternatives.

Adam Davis

1997, BA in History

Recent Positions
Diplomat, US Department of State

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
MA, International Relations, Johns Hopkins SAIS 2004

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
My history degree from UR helps me every day in the US Foreign Service. I learned critical thinking and
writing skills, which are a baseline requirement for any government service. I learned the value of historical context in managing today’s challenges—useful in challenging “group think” assumptions, which are often a historical and one-sided. Finally, the specific knowledge I gained through my concentration in African history has helped me shape our diplomatic approach in Africa. I strongly encourage History majors to consider a career in public service and diplomacy.

Contact: davis299@gmail.com 

Laura Ettinger

1999, PhD in History
1997, Certificate in Gender & Women's Studies
1994, MA in History

Current Position
Associate Professor of History, Clarkson University

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
AB, Vassar College, 1989

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
I couldn't be a history professor without my degree from UR since I need a PhD to hold my job! In addition, I had wonderful mentors there. I learned how to do research. I also learned how to teach both by watching and TA-ing for professors who loved to teach and by teaching several courses on my own through the Departments of History, Women's and Gender Studies, and Medical Humanities.

Anna Hengerer

1960, BA in History (High Honors)

Current Position
Retired 

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
MA, International Affairs, Harvard, 1963

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
The outstanding U of R history faculty (May/Coates/Wade) trained me to analyze sources and to do historical research which I used in teaching preparation in San Antonio, Maryland, and Virginia. Currently I do free-lance research using those same techniques.

Jan C. Hunsinger

1980, BA in History

Current Position
Schoolteacher (Retired) 

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
MAT, Colgate University

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
Turned my UR degree into a 35 year career teaching US History. 

Adam Konowe

1990, BA in History and Political Science

Current Positions
VP, Client Strategy (Aerospace & Defense), TMP Government
Adjunct Professorial Lecturer, School of Communication, American University

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
Junior Year Abroad, Keele University (UK)
MA Public Communication, American University

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
The research, writing and speaking skills that were honed during my undergraduate years as a University of Rochester history major constitute an invaluable asset that pays dividends to this day. The high expectations of my history professors necessitated and nurtured a rigorous approach to information collection and dissemination that has served me well, first in broadcasting and more recently in marketing. I will be forever grateful to Rochester for equipping me with vital core skills that have stood the test of time and enabled my success.

Mark Kreib

1987, BA in History

Current Positions
Commander, United States Navy (Retired)

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
MA, War Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, 2000

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
As a naval intelligence officer, the research, critical thinking and analytic skills developed as an undergrad were crucial in my professional development and further education.

Contact: mtkreib@hotmail.com

Paul A. Lester

1971, BA in History (Honors)

Current Positions
Attorney, Law Offices of Paul A. Lester, P.A., and Of Counsel to Cole, Scott & Kissane, P.A.-- Miami, Florida; and real estate entrepreneur/investor

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
JD, University of Pennsylvania Law School, 1974

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
Provided me with sharpened analytical skills, confidence in the classroom, and nutured my intellectual creativity in a very interesting environment.

Nancy Kelts Rice

1958, BA in History

Current Position
Social Worker, Retired

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
Masters of Social Work, Syracuse University, 1967

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
Helping people requires an interest in and empathy for their history, including cultural and historical origins.

Sarah Robert

1992, BA in History

Current Position
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Education, University of Buffalo

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
NYS Secondary Teaching Certificate in Social Studies, Warner School of Education
MA, Latin American Studies, UC San Diego
PhD, Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
My degree permitted me to continue to explore me in relation to the world I lived in. As part of a rigorous liberal arts education, I was encouraged to read, to think, to critique, to write, and to dialogue. These are the foundations of any thoughtful work and engagement in a democratic society. I had just enough courses to also assist me in my journey out of Plato's cave. I continue that journey each and every day.

William Robinson

1972, BA in History

Current Position
Director, Senior Counsel for Emergent BioSolutions Inc.

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
JD, Boston University School of Law, 1975
Member, Massachusetts Bar, 1975-Present and New York Bar, 2016-Present

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
The discipline of the history program, the individual excellence of the professors, and the richness of the course content prepared me superbly for law school and a continuing 40+ year practice.

Contact: robinsonw@ebsi.com (professional), wgrshout127@aol.com (personal)

Lou Roper

1992, PhD in History

Current Position
Professor of History, State University of New York - New Paltz

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
JD, University of Buffalo, 1983
BA, Northeastern University, 1976

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
Trained me as a teacher-scholar of early modern Britain and it's empire.

Most Recent Work
Advancing Empire: English Interests and Overseas Expansion, 1613-1688 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017)
The Torrid Zone: Caribbean Colonization and Cultural Interaction in the Long Seventeenth Century (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2018)

Contact: roperl@newpaltz.edu

Arlene Shaner

1980, MA in History

Current Position
Historical Collections Librarian, Library at the New York Academy of Medicine

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
In addition to my MA in history, I also have an MLS, as well as additional professional development courses related to rare book librarianship

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
When I was a history graduate student, I was lucky enough to get a summer job processing archival collections in the Rare Books and Special Collections part of the library.  The archivist hired me because I was a history graduate student.  I have continued to use the research and teaching skills I developed as a graduate student, whether I am assisting patrons with their research questions or conducting tours or classes about the collections with which I work.

I would be more than happy to talk to any history majors who might be interested in a career in librarianship.

Kathryn Elaine Slocum

2001, BA in History

Current Position
Logistics Officer, USMC

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
MFA, Creative Writing, 2010

 How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
I joke about never having gotten paid "one red cent" to "do" history or writing (my MFA) but the fact of the matter is this: without the critical thinking and persuasive/argumentative skills that my UR education provided me with, I am certain I would have had a much harder time being successful in everything I have been paid to do, since. I feel like the biggest gifts of my history degree have been literacy and critical thinking and evidence-based argumentative skills: the life- and career-enhancing experience of being able to know and communicate what I think, and why.
     I have a greater capacity to express myself within and beyond my profession, as well as more ability and inclination to hear and value inputs from different points of view because of the reading, thinking, and writing my history degree required.  Just about every type of profession advances to a point where doers become leaders of doers who must be able to listen, relate, persuade, hold *and* change the well-reasoned and often hard-won opinions of their own and others orally and by writing. My colleagues who spent their undergraduate years studying STEM subjects often hold a wealth of knowledge and aptitude in their admittedly lucrative professions--but are largely and by their own admission handicapped in their ability to communicate and persuade (requiring both cultural empathy and the ability to formulate and make an argument based on evidence). All successful scientists end up leading other scientists and making funding arguments, etc, based on evidence and human value. I am not arguing necessarily that the world today needs more History majors than scientists but I do suggest that our scientists, ever more charged with leading multicultural teams and grappling with concerns like medical and bio-engineering ethics, would serve themselves and others well by being literate and capable of leading and decision making in and on behalf of the human systems their valuable work is designed to enhance.  History and other social science / humanities pursuits can be more than just the "cluster" needed to graduate. They can be the bridge between our brilliant and, in this economy, well-advised STEM students' apprehension of what mankind is _capable_ of doing and what mankind _should_ do in their respective fields.  No UR graduate in any field should leave campus without exposure to and analysis of great ideas, past and present, and the ability to communicate about/for/against them in writing. A history degree (or minor) is a great way accomplish a beginning to this lifelong learning process.  I celebrate those who choose History as a career path and I strongly urge those who choose the sciences to leave UR *literate*.

Kayleigh Rae Stampfler

2018, BA in History

Current Position
Fundraiser - Rochester Area Community Foundation

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
MPA, SUNY Brockport

 How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
 It developed my creative and critical thinking as well as my ability to write.

Anne Lucile Strozier

1968, BA in History

Current Position
Associate Professor at the School of Social Work, University of South Florida
Psychologist in Private Practice

 Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
MA in African American Studies, Boston University, 1970
MSW, Washington University, 1974
PhD in Psychology, University of Missouri, 1989

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
The U of R imbued in me a love of learning and an inspiration to teach.  I had some fantastic history professors!

Peter Szabo

1985, BA in History and Political Science

Current Position
Founder and Principal, Bloomingdale Management Advisors, LLC

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
MPPM, Yale School of Management, 1990
MA in International Relations, Yale University, 1990

 How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
My history degree prepared me in many fundamental ways for life and for my career. Among those that come immediately to mind are: a) ability to synthesize lots of information, to look for the essential story, and, with that, the important meanings – this is a crucial skill; b) ability to think critically and independently; c) ability to research, to not trust just the first bit of information you find, but to keep digging; d) a sense of “historiography,” which applied outside academia translates to, “Well, how have people thought about this issue over time, and how do people think about it now?”; e) multiculturalism – how people from different cultures, etc. may view things differently; f) outstanding writing skills.

Curtis Vock

Current Position
Partner at Lathrop & Gage, LLP

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
JD, New England School of Law, 1992
MBA, University of Denver, 2000

Randall B. Whitestone

1983, BA in History and English

Current Position
Head of Communications & Public Affairs, The D. E. Shaw Group

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
MBA in Finance, University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
A history student’s ability to absorb and synthesize complex information and draw salient conclusions is fundamental to success in any profession – and especially so in communications-related fields. Additionally, historians must demonstrate critical thinking and a commitment to ideas – two attributes that have proved important in my career, whether in publishing a news story or in advising senior corporate executives.

Thomas W. Witmer

1964, BA History

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
MD, Medical College of Virginia, 1970

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
It gave me a perspective on life and the world that helped me deal more completely and empathetically with my patients during their time of crisis. 

Mark Zaid

1989, BA in History and Political Science

Current Position
Attorney/Managing Partner, Mark S. Zaid, P.C.

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
JD, Albany Law School, 1992

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
My history studies not only helped me prepare for law school, but it continues to help me every day in my profession as an attorney.

Arthur Zapesochny

2005, BA in History

Current Position
Financial Consultant, AXA Advisors

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
Certification in the Retirement Planning Program, University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School

 How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
Building at clientele is based on creating an emotional connection. People are often impressed when I can discuss the history (trials and tribulations) of my potential prospects' native country.

Eric Zimiles

1974, BA in History

Current Position
Assistant Commissioner, Adminstration and Operations, NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

Additional Degrees, Majors, Training
MA, History, University of California - Berkeley
Masters, City and Regional Planning, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

How did your history degree from University of Rochester help you prepare for your profession?
Learned to take the long view (more than one year or one election!!)