Faculty
Jay H. Buckley
Jay H. Buckley is an Associate Professor of History at BYU and the Director of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies and BYU’s American Indian Studies Minor. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Nebraska. Buckley authored William Clark: Indian Diplomat and A Golden Jubilee History: The Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at BYU, 1972–2022. His co-authored works include By His Own Hand?: The Mysterious Death of Meriwether Lewis; Zebulon Pike, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West; and Great Plains Forts. He has also contributed to books on public history, local history, and historical reference. Buckley served as President of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation and specializes in the fur trade, Lewis and Clark, exploration and migration, Indigenous-White relations, and the South African frontier. His current project is Woolly Wonders: A History of Sheep Herding and Ranching in Utah and the Intermountain West.
Brian Cannon
Brian Q. Cannon graduated from BYU with a BA in American Studies in 1984. He completed an MA in History at Utah State University in 1986 and a PhD in History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1992. Since that time he has been teaching at BYU. He teaches upper division courses in the American West in the Twentieth Century, Utah History, and U.S. History from 1890 to 1945. Much of his research focuses upon agricultural settlement, rural community development and federal rural policy in the twentieth century. He has received fellowships or other awards from the Western History Association, the Agricultural History Society, the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, the Ford Foundation and the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. He and his wife, Anna Lea, are the parents of one daughter and three sons.
Mark Christensen
Mark Christensen is a Colonial Latin American Historian at BYU, specializing in Nahua (Aztec) and Maya ethnohistory and the translation of Nahuatl and Maya texts. He earned his BA from BYU, MA from the University of Utah, and PhD from Pennsylvania State University. His work explores the colonial experiences of Nahuas and Mayas, focusing on their religious, economic, and social negotiations with Spanish colonialism. His book, The Teabo Manuscript, won the Latin American Studies Association Mexico Section Book Award in the Humanities. His current project, Return to Ixil, examines Maya society in 18th-century Yucatan. He lives in Mapleton, Utah, with his wife and five children.
Eric Dursteler
Eric Dursteler is a Professor of History at BYU, specializing in gender, religious identity, and food in the early modern Mediterranean. He earned his PhD from Brown University. His publications include Venetians in Constantinople, Renegade Women, A Companion to Venetian History, The Mediterranean World, and In the Sultan’s Realm. He is currently working on a book about food and foodways in the early modern Mediterranean. His research has been funded by the Fulbright Commission, NEH, Villa I Tatti, and the Delmas Foundation. Dursteler is the editor of News on the Rialto and former book review editor for the Journal of Early Modern History.
Sarah Guerrero
Sarah Loose joined the history department at BYU in 2016 and currently holds the rank of assistant professor. She holds both an undergraduate and a master's degree in History from BYU, and she completed a PhD at the University of Toronto. Her field of specialty is the late Middle Ages in Europe, particularly social and religious history in Italy. Her current research is focused on a book manuscript titled: Geographies of Charity and Power: Siena and the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala, 1400–1600. The book combines the study of charity and charitable institutions with the study of power in urban and rural spaces from the late medieval to the early modern era, using Siena's largest hospital and its rural possessions as a case study. Dr. Loose is also interested in digital history, and uses digital tools and methods like GIS mapping, in her scholarly work. Dr. Loose teaches courses on the early and late Middle Ages, World History to 1500, the Historian's Craft, and Digital History.
Kirk Larsen
An Associate Professor of History, Kirk W. Larsen specializes in the histories of modern Korea, modern China, and early modern and modern East Asian international relations. He earned a Ph.D. in History at Harvard University (2000). Joining the BYU faculty in 2008, he teaches courses in Korean, Chinese, East Asian, and World History. His publications include Tradition, Treaties, and Trade: Qing Imperialism and Chosŏn Korea, 1850–1910 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2008). His next book, Pirates, Soldiers, Diplomats, Cannibals, and Other 'Savages': Historical Memories of Early Korean-American Relations (1866–1882) is forthcoming. He has published, presented, and commented on a variety of contemporary issues including East Asian foreign relations, North Korea, nationalism and elections in South Korea, and Sino-Korean relations. He has appeared on ABC, MSNBC, VOA, the Canadian Broadcast System, and Al Jazeera.
Matthew E. Mason
Matthew E. Mason is a Professor of History at BYU, specializing in the history of slavery, early America, and Britain. He received his PhD from the University of Maryland in 2002 and joined BYU in 2003. Mason has published articles in various national and international journals and authored Slavery and Politics in the Early American Republic and Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett. He has co-edited books such as John Quincy Adams and the Politics of Slavery and Contesting Slavery: The Politics of Bondage and Freedom in the New American Nation.
Jeffery D. Nokes
Jeffery D. Nokes is an Assistant Professor in the History Department at BYU. He holds a PhD in teaching and learning from the University of Utah, specializing in literacy in secondary social studies classrooms. A former middle and high school teacher, his research focuses on history teaching and learning. Nokes authored Building Students’ Historical Literacies and has published several journal articles and book chapters on historical literacy, literacy instruction, and teacher preparation.