Meet the instructors

Volker Benkert, Assistant Professor

Volker Benkert is an Assistant Professor in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. His research focuses on the impact of sudden regime change on biographies after both totalitarian regimes in 20th century Germany. He is the author Glückskinder der Einheit. Lebenswege der um 1970 in der DDR Geborenen (Berlin: CH. Links Verlag 2017). Benkert's new research project explores apologetic and redemptive narratives in recent German Film. He also serves as Director of Graduate Studies for the new Worl War ll Museum in New Orleans.

Kimberly Allar, PhD

Dr. Kimberly Allar is a Clinical Assistant Professor of History and the Co-Director of the World War II Studies Master’s degree program at Arizona State University. Her research explores the role of violence, war, and community and how these topics intersect with gender and race. She has held research fellowships from the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Claims Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany, the Holocaust Educational Foundation, and the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure, among others. Her current work focuses on the recruitment and training policies for Nazi concentration camp guards from 1933-1945.

Aaron Baker, PhD

Aaron Baker is a Professor of English in the Film and Media Studies Program. Aaron's research focuses primarily on sports culture, film authorship and the representation of race, ethnicity and gender in American cinema. His publications include: "Out of Bounds: Sports, Media and the Politics of Identity" (Indiana University Press, 1997), "Contesting Identity: Sports in American Film" (University of Illinois Press, 2003), "Steven Soderbergh" (University of Illinois Press 2011), and "A Companion to Martin Scorsese" (Wiley Blackwell, 2014). He is currently writing a book on baseball films for Rutgers University Press.

Tyler Bamford, PhD

Tyler Bamford, PhD, is the Leventhal Research Fellow in the Institute for the Study of War and Democracy at The National WWII Museum in New Orleans. He obtained his PhD from Temple University and his BA from Lafayette College. His research focuses on the formation of the Anglo-American alliance in World War II and the material culture of the US military.

Robert Citino, PhD

Robert is The National WWII Museum’s Samuel Zemurray Stone Senior Historian. He is an award-winning military historian and scholar who has published 10 books, including The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943; Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942; and The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years' War to the Third Reich as well as numerous articles covering World War II and 20th-century military history. He speaks widely and contributes regularly to general readership magazines such as World War II.

Dr. Citino enjoys close ties with the US military establishment, and taught one year at the US Military Academy at West Point and two years at the US Army War College. He also was Professor of History at North Texas University, Lake Erie College, and Eastern Michigan University. He has won numerous teaching awards and was voted the #1 professor in the United States on ratemyprofessors.com in 2007.

Benjamin Freakley

Lieutenant General Benjamin C. Freakley serves as special advisor to ASU President Michael Crow for leadership initiatives. Additionally, he serves at the McCain Institute for International Leadership. He recently retired from the U.S. Army after more than 36 years of active military service, and was serving as commanding general, U.S. Army Accessions Command, at the time of his retirement. General Freakley was responsible for world-wide recruiting for the active duty and reserve components as well as overseeing the nation’s junior and college ROTC programs. Freakley’s awards include the Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star for Valor and ARCOM for Valor. He is an Eagle Scout and in 2010 was named the Education Policy Leader of the Year for the National Association for State Board Educators.

Toby Harper, PhD

Tobias "Toby" Harper is an Assistant Professor of History in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. Toby is a historian of modern Britain and British Empire. He is interested in how personal and communal experiences of curiosity, hope and vanity informed cultural and political life at a local, national and transactional level. Harper has published on the social, political and cultural history of the modern British honors system, and transnational level.

Keith Huxen, PhD

Keith is the Senior Director of Research and History for the Institute for the Study of War and Democracy at The National WWII Museum. He earned BA and MA degrees from Louisiana State University and earned his PhD from George Washington University. He taught at the college level for over 10 years (2002-2012), serving as an Associate Professor at Baton Rouge Community College and Adjunct Professor at Louisiana State University and the University of New Orleans. He received the NISOD Excellence in Teaching Award and has published in venues including the Oxford Forum on Public Policy, Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals, and two weekly online columns for the Museum’s website.

Since joining the Museum in 2011, his responsibilities have focused on creating and developing the historical exhibits in the Museum’s capital expansion plan, including the permanent exhibits in US Freedom Pavilion: The Boeing Center, The Duchossois Family Road to Berlin: European Theater Galleries and the Richard C. Adkerson & Freeport McMoRan Foundation Road to Tokyo: Pacific Theater Galleries in the Campaigns of Courage pavilion, and the recently completed The Arsenal of Democracy: The Herman and George R. Brown Salute to the Home Front.

Yan Man, PhD

Yan Mann is a Clinical Assistant Professor of History and the Co-Director of the World War II Studies Master’s degree program at Arizona State University. Born in Chernovtsy, Ukraine, Yan studied history at St. Johns University, where he earned a bachelor's and master's degree. He spent a year in Moscow, Russia doing research on a Fulbright grant and received his doctorate at Arizona State University. His research revolves around the relationship between individual and collective memory of the Great Patriotic War, the Stalin cult, censorship, propaganda, and the production of the war’s first official history during Khrushchev’s thaw. He specialized in the Second World War and the Soviet Union.

Gordon H. "Nick" Mueller, Founding President and CEO Emeritus of The National WWII Museum

Gordon H. “Nick” Mueller, PhD, European historian and former Vice Chancellor at the University of New Orleans, is President and CEO Emeritus of The National WWII Museum. Together with fellow historian Stephen Ambrose, Mueller on June 6, 2000, brought to life The National D-Day Museum, an institution ultimately designated America’s National WWII Museum by a 2004 act of Congress. He continues to participate in overseas WWII tours and speaks widely on the war experience, the American spirit, and nonprofit leadership.

Edward B. O'Donnell

Ambassador O’Donnell leads the ASU course (Policy Design Studio 484) “Diplomacy in Action, the Embassy Country Team” at The McCain Institute in Washington, D.C. and is developing additional educational programs.

Ambassador O’Donnell retired from the career U.S. Foreign Service in 2007, after 33 years in Latin America, German-speaking Europe and other positions in Washington, D.C. He served in Germany, Austria, Panama, Colombia and Paraguay, as Charge, Deputy Chief of Mission, Consul General (Principal Officer), Economic Counselor and Commercial Attaché. In Washington D.C., he was a negotiating Ambassador concentrating on Holocaust issues; a Democratic Charter for the Americas and civil aviation rights. He was Executive Assistant to three Under Secretaries and Special Assistant, Policy Planning Staff.

James Rush, PhD

James Rush is a Professor of History in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. James was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malaysia and subsequently studied modern Southeast Asian history at Yale University, where he received his PhD in 1977. His work explores issues of colonialism and religion in 19th and 20th century Indonesia and includes the books"Southeast Asia: a very short introduction," "Opium to Java: Revenue Farming and Chinese Enterprise in Colonial Indonesia, 1860-1910," and "Hamka's Great Story: A Master Writer's Vision of Islam for Modern Indonesia." Other books include "The Last Tree: Reclaiming the Environment in Tropical Asia," and "Java: A Traveller's Anthology." As a public historian, Rush led the biography project of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (Philippines) from 1987 to 2008, conducting oral-history interviews with more than 100 Magsaysay Awardees and editing eight volumes of biographical essays (1991-2010). His own essays in the series include 39 subjects from East, South, and Southeast Asia, among them Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Abdurrahman Wahid, Bienvenido Lumbera, Ravi Shankar, V.E. Sarachchandra, and Fei Xiaotong.

Robert Spindler

Rob Spindler is University Archivist at the Arizona State University Library. He was also administrator of Archives & Special Collections and curator for the Arizona Collection from 1996-2017. Rob is a Distinguished Fellow of the Society of American Archivists and he served as a past chair of several SAA component groups including the Congressional Papers Roundtable, Description Section, Electronic Publications Working Group and Nominating committees. Spindler was founding project coordinator for Arizona Archives Online, an online index to archival descriptions from archives throughout Arizona and he serves as chair of the Arizona State Historical Records Advisory Board. Rob was also founding conference co-chair for ECURE: Preservation and Access for Digital College and University Resources, an interdisciplinary conference sponsored by ASU from 1999-2006. He has served on the program/arrangements committee for the Arizona Archives Summit since 2009.