History

B.A., University of South Florida-Tampa; M.A. University of Tennessee-Knoxville; Ph.D.
University of Tennessee-Knoxville

Alyssa is a historian of modern Germany, whose research focuses on the intersections of science,
medicine, and local tradition. At IWU, Alyssa teaches on memory and digital history, medicine
in popular culture, disease and public health, global perspectives of science, medicine, and
technology, as well as survey courses in modern global history.

Her book project, “Death, Tradition, and the Making of the Modern Morgue in Rural Bavaria,
1855-1914” investigates how nineteenth-century Bavarians’ cultural and social understandings
of death, burial, and the corpse changed with the establishment of the morgue. Alyssa examines
these institutional developments and explores the impact of medical and state intervention on
German culture and identity. Alyssa’s research was most recently supported by a 2020-2021
Fulbright Open Study/Research Award to Germany and in 2019 with a Deutscher Akademischer
Austauschdienst or German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Short-Term Research Grant
and a Central European Historical Society Research and Travel Grant. While living in Germany
she visited numerous cemeteries and morgues and in her free time, she learned the best local
hiking spots and even how to package bratwurst.