The Center is excited to welcome Dr. Hilary Coulson as a new Lecturer and faculty colleague.
Dr. Coulson earned her Ph.D. at UC San Diego in history with a background in Interdisciplinary Humanities. Dr. Coulson’s research focuses on the history of institutions with a particular interest in prisons, hospitals, asylums, and universities in The Early Republic era in the United States. She became interested in her research while working on her doctorate and assisting with a project about women’s clubs in California in the early 20th century. She was surprised that these women’s clubs were often heavily involved in prison reform and helped build the first women’s prison in California. This inquiry birthed other questions for Dr. Coulson: “Why wasn’t there a women’s prison before that? Where were women going in prison? I started asking what’s going on south of the Mason-Dixon Line in terms of prisons. I started kind of following their lives and their experiences within that institution and their facilities, their treatment.” Dr. Coulson’s research extends into incarceration and motherhood and childbirth in prison.
Dr. Coulson is excited to incorporate her research interests and her experience teaching history into her courses in the Center, such as History of American Medicine. Since the onset of the pandemic, she has also been able to incorporate her weekly history podcast with Dr. Geoffrey West, “An Incomplete History,” as a supplementary resource in her classes. “I ended up using several podcast episodes in the asynchronous offering of one of my courses to supplement the students’ learning and say, hey, if you want to know a little bit more about this topic, go ahead and listen to this. And I got some really positive feedback on it. It’s been a really good tool for students.”
Dr. Coulson’s interdisciplinary research on gender and institutions has also led her to different research projects. Currently, Dr. Coulson is co-authoring a book about women in leadership at the University of Houston, in particular. “I’m working on a piece right now about transformational leadership. I’m writing about the president and chancellor of the University of Houston system, Renu Knator, who is the first woman and immigrant to head such a research system.”
A California native, Dr. Coulson has lived and taught in over five states at institutions such as UNC and, most recently, the University of Mississippi. She is overjoyed to be an addition to the Center, noting, “I think it’s amazing. I am so happy, not only that I am teaching, which is my favorite thing to do, but also that I’m teaching in a field that I think is so important and where I find the most enthusiastic engaged students; it’s really a huge privilege to me to be here.” When she is not teaching class five days a week or working on her podcast, Dr. Coulson enjoys cooking and baking, playing piano, hiking with her two dogs, spending time with her adopted daughters, and preparing for her newest addition this winter.