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About the Research Team

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Dr. Jason A. Higgins, Project Director, is an award-winning author, editor, and oral historian at Virginia Tech. He is the Digital Scholarship Coordinator (Humanities) at Virginia Tech Publishing & Press. He is jointly affiliated with University Libraries and the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences and teaches the Vietnam War, African American History, and Oral History. He earned a Ph.D. in History and a graduate certificate in Public History from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is also the co-editor of Service Denied: Marginalized Veterans in Modern American History (UMass Press 2022) and the author of Prisoners After War: Veterans in the Age of Mass Incarceration (Umass Press 2024), winner of the Oral History Association Best Book Award in 2025. 


Andre Taylor, Research Collaborator, is a PhD candidate in the American Studies program at the College of William & Mary. His research project, “Sit-ins and Takeouts: Greensboro, the Civil Rights Movement, and Food,” focuses on the memories of those who participated in the sit-ins and other protests centered around food, who worked behind white lunch counters, those who worked in Black eateries and lodges, women who spearheaded protests in the city, and those who cooked in the churches to provide food for Civil Rights Movement activists in Greensboro from 1960 to 1969. He is the former historian of African American History and Culture with the Colonial Williamsburg (Virginia) Foundation where he focused on 18th century Black foodways. In 2022, Andre published an article, “Sweet Memory: Extracting Oral Histories from Unwritten African American Recipes,” in the University of London’s “Historians for History” blog. He is a native of Philadelphia, Pa. and holds a Bachelor of Arts in History (NC A&T State University) and a Master of Arts in Public History (NC State University).

 

Leena Alsayab, Research Assistant, is a recent graduate of Virginia Tech where she earned her B.A in political science and minors in War and Society and Middle East Studies. Along with her work with Crossing the Military-Civilian Divide Oral History project, Leena is also a research assistant for the Descendant Communities Reconciliation project, which records oral histories with descendants of enslaved and enslaving families to promote truth and the possibilities of reconciliation. Leena Alsayab is a third-year law student at American University Washington College of Law, where she focuses on international humanitarian law and human rights. She works with the American University International Human Rights Law Clinic and is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Human Rights Brief. Her experience includes work with the American Red Cross International Humanitarian Law Program and the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre, where she conducted research on armed conflict and atrocity crimes. Her work centers on the law of armed conflict and accountability for systemic violations.
Madison Cholewa, Research Assistant, is a recent graduate of Virginia Tech where she earned her B.A. in Political Science with a minor in Sociology. Along with her work on Crossing the Military-Civilian Divide Oral History project, she is also a research assistant for the Descendant Communities Reconciliation project, which records oral histories with descendants of enslaved and enslaving families to promote truth and the possibilities of reconciliation. Madison is currently pursuing a career that will further explore her passions of law and justice, particularly how they intersect.  
Gabrielle Wells, Research Assistant, is a recent graduate of Virginia Tech where she earned her B.S. in Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience with a minor in War and Society. Gabrielle is currently pursuing a civilian career with the Department of Defense.


Gabriel Philipsen, Research Assistant is a recent graduate of Virginia Tech who received a B.A. in Multimedia Journalism with a minor in Psychology. Along with his work on Crossing the Military-Civilian Divide Oral History project, he worked on the Migrant Workers of the Virginia Tidewater Project, he has done professional broadcast and reporting work for ‘The News Feed NRV’ and was a part of radio station ‘WUVT-FM’ for 4 years. Gabriel is currently pursuing a career in Broadcast and Entertainment Journalism in Washington D.C.

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