Welcome!

I am a historian, author, and educator born in New York and raised in Rome, Singapore, and São Paulo. I earned an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Michigan prior to embarking on a post-graduate year of study and work in Taiwan and Mainland China. I then returned to the University of Michigan and earned an M.A. in Asian Studies (focus: China). Soon after, I found my way to teaching public high school social studies ay Bay Shore High School (NY). I taught over ten different courses, including AP World History and IB 20th-century History, developing secondary-school level simulations, trials, and debates. But how else could I encourage students to venture back in time? I decided to write a young adult historical fiction series. More recently, my family’s move prompted me to pursue a Ph.D. in History (Georgia State University, 2019) and embark on new adventures–into the archives.

As an AP World History teacher, I began writing for practical purposes: my Jackie Tempo historical fiction series is meant as enrichment for secondary-school world history courses. My work on pedagogy includes “A Low-Tech Approach to Teaching World History” in Teaching World History in the Twenty-First Century (M.E. Sharpe, 2009) and this recent article on Brazil in World History. I have also workshopped and written about leveraging historical fiction in history courses–serving, for example, as a contributing author to “Seeking Truths in Fiction” in the American Historical Association’s Perspectives in History (November 2021).

My scholarly publications include Ten Notable Women of Colonial Latin America with co-authors Jim and Linda Henderson (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022) Ten Notable Women of Latin America (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) and The Battle for Brazil: Resistance, Renewal, and the War Against the Dutch (1580-1654), now in production and forthcoming with University of New Mexico Press (January 13, 2026). I also have a chapter in an exciting anthology on early modern Ibero-Dutch entanglements (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2024). On the pedagogy front, I’ve co-authored “What’s the Story? Engaging Literature in the Modern Latin American History Course” in Sharika Crawford and Kari Zimmerman, eds, Understanding and Teaching Modern Latin America (University of Wisconsin Press, February 2026). Links to those works coming soon! I’m a contributing author to Candice Goucher, ed.’s four-volume Women Who Changed the World (ABC-CLIO, January 2022).

I draw on my experience as an educator and as a researcher with an active agenda to help connect teachers and historians. In this piece, I marry historical research with teaching strategies for high school and college-level learning. I’m a long-time member of the American Historical Association and the World History Association, both of which foster engagement and collaboration between teachers and historians. The journey continues … thank you for joining me!