LAURA FRETWELL
Boca Raton, Florida 33431
Email: lfretwell@fau.edu
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-brannan-fretwell-9b9852ab
EDUCATION
George Mason University
PhD, History and Art History, 2025
Dissertation: Forgetting the Freed: The Buried Histories of Richmond’s Chimborazo Park, 1861-1961
Advisor: Dr. Alison Landsberg
Committee: Dr. Yevette Richards Jordan, Dr. Michael O’Malley, Dr. Cynthia Kierner
Major Field: U.S. History; Minor Fields: Memory Studies and Public History, Women and Gender in America
Georgia State University
M.A. in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, (2019)
Thesis: Buried Histories: A De-Colonial, Feminist View of Space, Land, and Universities
Furman University
Bachelor of Arts in History, (2016)
EMPLOYMENT
Assistant Professor of Digital and Public History
Department of History, Florida Atlantic University, August 2025-
PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS
“Layering Public Park Histories: Uncovering the Effects of Restoration Idea[l]s in Post-war Urban Spaces in Germany and the U.S.” with Eliane Schmid, European Journal of Geography, Volume 16 (1), 2025, s30-s44. https://doi.org/10.48088/ejg.si.spat.hum.l.bra.30.44.
Review of Gerald Horne, The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in Seventeenth-Century North America and the Caribbean. Journal of Colonialism & Colonial History Volume 20, Number 1, (Spring 2019) https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/40121
DIGITAL WRITTEN WORK
“New Historical Marker at Chimborazo Park Honors African American Residents from 18651877,” Church Hill Association Newsletter, September/October 2024. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1omt3-T0cTOdPu5JcgKG0af0d8PNcgLhu/view?usp=sharing
“Best of the Web: Washington Chronicles,” Washington History: Magazine of the DC History Center. Volume 35, Number 1, Spring 2023.
“Lorraine Brown: A Feminist Founder of George Mason,” Mapping the University, 2021, https://mappingtheuniversity.rrchnm.org/narratives/gmu–lorraine–brown/
“Mock ‘Slave Sale’ Fundraisers at Mason and Old Dominion,” Mapping the University, 2021, https://mappingtheuniversity.rrchnm.org/narratives/slave–sales/
“Parking Lots and Protests: The Mallory House Incident in 1971,” Mapping the University, 2021, https://mappingtheuniversity.rrchnm.org/narratives/mallory–house/
“Harriet Tubman,” The Enslaved Naturalist, 2021, https://jmjp.gmu.edu/the–enslavednaturalist/tubman/
“Statues and Residential Space,” Divided Union, 2020, https://dividedunion.org/statues–andresidential–space/4/
“Website Review: Freedom Narratives,” World History Commons, 2020, https://worldhistorycommons.org/freedom-narratives.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
HIS 5944: Teaching and Professional Practicum (Fall 2026)
AMH 2020: US History Since 1877, Florida Atlantic University (Fall 2025-Fall 2026)
HIS 3065: Introduction to Public History, Florida Atlantic University (Fall 2025)
HIST 390: The Digital Past, Instructor of Record, George Mason University (Spring 2024)
HIST 100: Western Civilization, Graduate Teaching Assistant, George Mason University (Fall 2019)
HIST 389: Cold War America Graduate Teaching Assistant, George Mason University (Spring 2020)
WGSS 2010: Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Instructor of Record, Georgia State University, (Fall 2018-Spring 2019)
SELECTED CONFERENCES & PRESENTATIONS
“Working with Small Data: AI, Ethics, and Community Engagement in Digital Public Humanities”, Hybrid Workshop Presenter, Alliance of Digital Humanities Organization Annual Meeting, Daejeon, South Korea, July 2026
“Segregation to Congregation: Black Placemaking In and Around Richmond’s Chimborazo Park in the Early- to Mid-Twentieth Century”, Presenter, Virginia Forum Annual Meeting, Shenandoah University, Winchester, Virginia, March 2026
“Commemoration versus Community: The Establishment of the National Park Service’s Chimborazo Medical Museum in Richmond, Virginia in the 1950s”, Presenter,
Southern Historical Association Annual Meeting, St. Petersburg, Florida, November 2025
“Commemoration versus Community: The Establishment of the National Park Service’s
Chimborazo Medical Museum in Richmond, Virginia in the 1950s”, Invited Talk, Coffee Colloquium for the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture, Florida Atlantic University“
Collaborative Models for Digital Humanities Across Communities, Positionalities, and Institutional and National Borders”, Hybrid Roundtable for UK-Ireland Digital Humanities Association Annual Meeting, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK, June 2025
“Researching Race and Space in the Digital Era: African American Spatial Biographies” Roundtable for American Historical Association Annual Meeting, New York City, New York, January 2025
“Teaching Digital Tools Transnationally: Tropy and Omeka S in the Undergraduate Classroom”, Invited Talk for the Ghent Centre for Digital Humanities at Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, December 2024
“Layering Public Park Histories: Using GIS to Uncover the Effects of Restoration Idea[l]s in Post-war Urban Spaces in Germany and the U.S.,” Organizer and Presenter with Eliane Schmid, Spatial Humanities Annual Meeting, Bamberg, Germany, September 2024
“Digital Curations and Connections: Teaching Omeka S in the Undergraduate Classroom”, Organizer and Presenter, Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C, August 2024
“Commemoration versus Community: The Establishment of the National Park Service’s Chimborazo Medical Museum in Richmond, Virginia in the 1950s”, Presenter, Black Plac(e)ing Futures Symposium at Georgetown University, April 2024, Washington, D.C.
“Construction and Destruction: Forgetting the Freed for the ‘Park and the People’”, Presenter, Organization of American Historian Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 2024
“Commemoration versus Community: The Establishment of the National Park Service’s Chimborazo Medical Museum in Richmond, Virginia in the 1950s”, Presenter, Virginia Forum Annual Meeting, Virginia Museum of History & Culture, Richmond, Virginia, April 2024
“Omeka S & Spatial History” Invited Lecture Series at the University of Luxembourg’s Introduction to Spatial Studies & Digital Methods for the Humanities Course, March 2023
“Construction and Destruction: Forgetting the Freed for the ‘Park and the People’”, Presenter, Southern Historical Association Annual Meeting, Charlotte, North Carolina, November 2023
“Buried Histories of Chimborazo Park” Invited Talk at Chimborazo Visitor Center, Richmond National Battlefield Park, National Parks Service, Richmond, Virginia, October 2023
“Forgetting the Freed: Digital Historical Research in the U.S.”, Invited Talk for the Centre for Contemporary and Digital History’s Research Seminar at the University of Luxembourg, Belval, Luxembourg, May 2023
“Managing a Digital Public History Project: The History and Culture Access Consortium Project”, poster with Timmia King for the National Council on Public History Annual Meeting, April 2023
“Mapping Mobility in Slavery and Freedom: The Ethical Issues and Methodological Process of Datafying Slavery’s Archive”, poster for “Datafication in the Historical Humanities” Conference, Annual Meeting of German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C., June 2022
“Digital Cultural History” Virtual Roundtable for Organization of American Historian Annual Meeting, Boston, Massachusetts, March 2022
“Confederate Statues and Residential Space: A Case Study of Richmond’s Monument Avenue”, Presenter, American Historical Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana, January 2022
FELLOWSHIPS & AWARDS
Scholarly and Creative Accomplishment Fellowship, College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University, 2026-2027
Research Seed Grant, College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University, 2025-2026
Ambassador Robert M. Orr, Jr. ’76 Research Travel Award, Department of History, Florida Atlantic University, 2025-2026
Department of History Conference Travel Research Fellowship, Florida Atlantic University, 2025-2026
2025 Council of Graduate Schools and ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award Nominee, George Mason University, 2025
Outstanding Graduate Student Honoree, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, George Mason University, 2024-2025
Office of the Provost’s Doctoral Research Fellowship, George Mason University, 2024-2025
Dean’s Challenge Graduate Scholarship, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, George Mason University, 2024-2025
Office of the Provost’s Dissertation Summer Research Fellowship, George Mason University, 2024
Department of History and Art History Travel Research Fellowship, George Mason University, 2024
Residential Fellowship, Center for Humanities Research, George Mason University, 2023
Office of the Provost’s Dissertation Summer Research Fellowship, George Mason University, 2023
Visiting Research Fellowship, Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH), University of Luxembourg, 2023
Cosmos Scholars Research Fund, Cosmos Club Foundation, Washington, D.C., 2023
Department of History and Art History Travel Research Fellowship, George Mason University, George Mason University, 2022
C.W. Bright Pixel Prize for Best History & New Media Project, George Mason University, 2022
Department of History and Art History Travel Research Fellowship, George Mason University, 2022
Department of History and Art History Travel Research Fellowship, George Mason University, 2021
Research Fellowship, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History & New Media, George Mason University, 2021-2023
HASTAC Scholar Fellowship, Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory, 2020-2022
Digital History Fellowship, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History & New Media, George Mason University, 2020-2021
Department of History and Art History Travel Research Fellowship, George Mason University, George Mason University, 2019
Diane Fowlkes Research Award, Georgia State University, 2018
Graduate Research Assistantship, Georgia State University, 2017-2019
ACADEMIC SERVICE
Search Committee Member, Director of the Craig and Barbara Weiner Holocaust Museum of South Florida at Florida Atlantic University, 2026-
Member, Planning Committee for the Craig and Barbara Weiner Holocaust Museum of South
Florida at Florida Atlantic University and the George and Irina Schaeffer Dimensions in
Testimony interactive display, 2025-
Member, Graduate Committee for the History Department at Florida Atlantic University, 2025-
Search Committee, Director of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, 2022-2023
Co-President, History Graduate Student Organization (HGSO), George Mason University, 2022-2023
Treasurer, History Graduate Student Organization (HGSO), George Mason University, 2022-2023
Co-President, Students Promoting Engagement through Activism and Knowledge (SPEAK), Georgia State University, 2018-2019
PUBLIC HISTORY EXPERIENCE
Member, Advisory Planning Board for the future Pearl City History Museum at the Developing Interracial Social Change (DISC), 2025-
Chimborazo Park Conservancy Non-profit, Richmond, Virginia, Historical Consultant, 2023-
Richmond National Battlefield Park, National Parks Service, Richmond, Virginia, Historical Consultant & Public Facilitator, 2024-2025
Chimborazo Park Conservancy, Richmond, Virginia, Historical Consultant, 2023-2025
DIGITAL HISTORY EXPERIENCE
Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH), University of Luxembourg, 2023
Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University Graduate Research Assistant, 2021-2023
John Mitchell Jr. Program for History, Justice, and Race, George Mason University Digital Humanities Coordinator, 2020-2024
PROFESSIONAL AND ACADEMIC ORGANIZATIONS
Member, Association for Computers and the Humanities, 2026-
Member, National Council for Public History, 2026-
Member, Southern Historical Association, 2023-2026
Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, Affiliate, 2023-2025
American Historical Association, Member, 2021-
Organization of American Historians, Member, 2022-
Southern Historical Association, Member, 2023-
LANGUAGES AND SKILLS
Languages: English, Spanish, intermediate
Programming and Web Development Languages: R, HTML, CSS
Tools: QGIS, ArcGIS, Leaflet, Airtable, Palladio, GitHub
CMS: Omeka, Omeka S, WordPress
