Professional background
I’m an associate professor of history and associate director of the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) at Boise State. I focus much of my time on helping faculty improve their their course design and teaching strategies, particularly with regards to emerging technologies. I spend a lot of time thinking about how best to design courses so that they’re accessible to all students, regardless of cultural background or (dis)ability.
Although my job in the CTL occupies most of my time, teaching and talking with students is my favorite part of my work.
I teach U.S. history, my courses tend to focus on cultural history, the lived experiences of people living in what is now the U.S. In particular, my courses regularly explore how people’s adopted or perceived identities—their gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic class, religion, and other forms of identity—shape their opportunities and experiences.
As a researcher and practitioner, my focus is on public history—that is, how the public learns about, interprets, and creates new ideas about the past. I tend to work in digital media rather than publish traditional articles or books. That said, I am currently writing a book on how public historians and those in adjacent fields are responding to our age of persistent, multiple existential threats. It’s called History in the Age of Disaster.
I’ve also written journal articles about women scientists working in museums, botanical gardens, and zoos in the 19th and 20th centuries. You can find many of these by searching for them under a previous name I used, Leslie Madsen-Brooks.
I hold a B.A. in English from Grinnell College; an M.A. in English/Creative Writing (poetry) from the University of California, Davis; and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Cultural Studies, also from UC Davis.
Personal background
When I’m not working, you might run into me when I’m walking or running along the Boise River Greenbelt, working out at the campus rec center, gardening at home, or exercising my plus-size dog, Jasmine, in west Boise or any of the city’s dog parks.
My sweet dog Jasmine. She’s likely a Malamute mix. 
EB, getting high off catmint from my garden before destroying the rest of the bouquet from my garden.
I’m the mom to a very bright and quite geeky 14-year-old boy, and my partner—whom I met at a college reunion, so you should be sure to attend those 😉 —works in cybersecurity. I also live with a young cat, Eastwood Brandegee (named after my two favorite California botanists); I call him EB, and he’s a total a**hole, but I love him anyway.