Center Directors and Staff

David M. Kennedy, is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History Emeritus; he came to Stanford in 1967. Professor Kennedy received the Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1988. His scholarship is notable for its integration of economic and cultural analysis with social and political history.

Dr. Kennedy was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history in 1999 for Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War. He  received an A.B. in history from Stanford University and MA and PhD from Yale University. See More >

Richard White, is the Margaret Byrne Professor of American History; he came to Stanford in 1998. Professor White's areas of study include the American Northwest, including Canada, with wide interests in social, environmental, and cultural cross-currents. White's first book, Land Use, Environment, and Social Change in a Western County, Island County, Washington, 1790-1940, was one of the first small-scale studies of ecological change produced by environmental historians.

Professor White received a MacArthur Award in 1997, and he is the principal investigator for the Shaping the West project. This project explores the construction of space by transcontinental railroads in North America during the late nineteenth-century. Professor White has been conducting this research for the last twelve years. He received an AB in history from the University of California, Santa Cruz and an MA and PhD from the University of Washington. See More >

Jon Christensen was appointed as Executive Director in September 2009. Jon has been associated with the Center for many years. He was a Distinguished Departmental Scholar for Academic Year 2008-2009, supported by a Mellon Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, and was honored with a Prize for Excellence in First-Time Teaching in 2005-2006. His dissertation, “Critical Habitat,” is a history of ideas, narratives, science, land use change, and practices of conservation and extinction of a species in time and space. Christensen is the Principal Investigator for the Spatial History Project. His broader research and teaching interests include environmental history, natural history and the history of biological and ecological sciences, climate change, conservation, western history, and the history of journalism.

Christensen was an environmental journalist and science writer for 20 years before coming to Stanford to work on a Ph.D. with western and environmental historian Richard White. His work appeared in The New York Times, High Country News, and many other newspapers, magazines, journals, and radio and television shows. He was a Knight Professional Journalism Fellow at Stanford in 2002-2003 and a Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University in 2003-2004. His recent publications include: “Environmental Prospects in the 21st Century,” in A Companion to California History, ed. William Deverell and David Igler (Blackwell Publishing, 2008) and “Smoking Out Objectivity: Journalistic Gears in the Agnogenesis Machine,” in Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance, ed. Londa Schiebinger and Robert Proctor (Stanford University Press, 2008).

Priscilla Williams has been at Stanford since 1985, hired by the History Department. Before Stanford, after receiving a B.S. in Business with a minor in English, she earned a secondary teaching credential through an intern high school teaching program.  She is a member of the National Parks Conservation Association, roots&shoots, and a supporter of the Woods Institute for the Environment.  Priscilla joined the Bill Lane Center in 2007 as the office and financial administrator.

Julie Martinez graduated from Stanford University with a double major in Economics and History, and continued her education at the Graduate School of Management at UCLA, where she earned an MBA. She has held various financial management positions in the high technology industry at companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and Tandem Computers. She also has previous experience working with students in various settings. Julie has been coordinating internships for the Bill Lane Center for the American West since 2006, and has been instrumental in the successful growth of the program.

Sue Purdy Pelosi joined the Bill Lane Center in 2007. Sue coordinates our publicity and outreach efforts and plans our major events, including Walking the Farm. She also works on developing publications for the Bill Lane Center's activities. Sue has been managing publicity and events on Stanford campus since 2001. She has worked for Stanford's Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies (CREEES) and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program in Management Science & Engineering (STVP).