Associate Professor of History

Mallory Szymanski

Human Studies

(607) 871-2998

[email protected]

Kanakadea Hall

Education

PhD, History, University of Florida, 2017
MA, Women's Studies, University of Florida, 2008
BA, English and History, University of Florida, 2006

Biography

Dr. Szymanski is a historian of the 19th- and 20th- century United States who writes about gendered experiences of police violence, mental health, and the promises and failures of reform. Her current book project chronicles about the lives of Black women and girls who have been harmed or killed by police since the 1960s. Using oral histories and partnerships with family members and survivors, her book argues that a person-centered and gendered lens makes other social institutions legible in the history of state violence: social services, mental health care, and education.

Dr. Szymanski's scholarship and teaching are collaborative and community-based. She is co-founder of the Upstate New York Policing Research Consortium (UNY-PRC) which unites system-affected people and scholars across disciplines. She works with student interns on the #SayHerNameRochester UNY-PRC Digital Archive project that houses oral histories, family ephemera, newspapers, photographs, and other materials focused on women killed by police. The team partners with stakeholders across New York State to collect and digitize these collections for the general public. Alfred University students should contact Dr. Szymanski to apply for APEX-funded or credit-bearing internships with UNY-PRC.

Dr. Szymanski is Executive Editor at Clio and the Contemporary. Her students recently contributed to an advice piece at Clio: Presenting at your First Undergraduate Academic Conference: A Guide FOR Students BY Students. Dr. Szymanski serves on the board of HOPE First Roc, the first peer-led crisis response team of its kind in New York State. She teaches history courses in prison for the Rochester Education Justice Initiative (REJI).

In the classroom, Dr. Szymanski promotes learning that lives outside the classroom. Her courses include field trips, public engagement, campus presentations, digital history, and opportunities for publication and conference attendance. She cultivates students' skillsets--primary source research, reading comprehension, written and verbal communication, critical thinking, podcasting--so that students can build their confidence (and their resumes) during their time at Alfred. Partnerships with local institutions such as the Allegany Historical Society, Chemung County Historical Society, and Susan B. Anthony link students to research and internship opportunities off campus. Dr. Szymanski advises the Phi Alpha Theta chapter at Alfred. Her students have won Best Paper at the regional Phi Alpha Theta conference and published original research in the Kanakadea Review.