Katrina Lacher, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
About
Katrina Lacher is an associate professor of United States history and environmental history and chair of the Department of History and Geography. Originally from Worcester, Massachusetts, Lacher received her undergraduate degree from Sewanee (The University of the South) and her master’s in history from Boston College. After several years teaching high school history, she earned her doctoral degree at the University of Oklahoma. Her dissertation, Extinguishing the Green Fire: Opposition to Environmentalism, 1948-2010, currently is under manuscript review. Lacher’s current research focuses on the politics and culture of direct-action environmental organizations such as Earth First!, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and the Earth Liberation Front. She has received several research grants and fellowships, including a Clements Center-DeGolyer Library Research Fellowship at Southern Methodist University. She has presented at regional, national, and international conferences. In addition to presentations at the American Society for Environmental History, American Historical Association, and Organization of American Historians annual conferences, she was invited to present her work, “The Island Community of Chenega: Earthquake, Tsunami, Oil Spill … What’s Next?,” at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich, Germany. She recently had the pleasure to be selected as a Scholar in Residence at Grey Towers National Historic Site in Milford, Pennsylvania.
In the classroom, Lacher enjoys encouraging her students to ask big questions about the past. Students at all levels (from introductory-level survey courses to graduate seminars) engage in primary source research as they construct their historical interpretations. In addition to surveys in U.S. history, Lacher teaches a variety of environmental history courses such as American Environmental History, Global Environmental History, History of Oil, and History of the American City. She is also director of the Sustainability Studies Minor.
Education and Certifications
B.A. - Sewanee (The University of the South)
M.A. - Boston College
Ph.D. - The University of Oklahoma
Classes Taught
HIST 1493 - History of the US since 1877
HIST 2413 - Intro to Sustainability
HIST 3113 - Historical Research
HIST 3252 - History of the American City
HIST 3743 - Global Environmental History
HIST 3833 - History of Oil
HIST 4833 - Social & Cultural History of the US since 1865
HIST 4873 - History of the US, 1945 to Present
HIST 4993 - History Capstone
HIST 5013 - Historiography
HIST 5023 - Gradaute Colloquium
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