Overview
Overview
Established in 1994, Monticello's Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies (ICJS) is a multidisciplinary research center that leads the study of Thomas Jefferson and his world and supports the ongoing work of preservation and education at Monticello. The ICJS offers fellowship programs that allow researchers and teachers to consult with Monticello scholars and librarians and to utilize the resources of the Jefferson Library and the University of Virginia libraries as well as the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery and Getting Word African American History Department. To date, the ICJS has awarded more than 600 fellowships to researchers from around the country and globe.
2026-2027 ICJS Fellows
Christopher Bates (PhD, University of Edinburgh) recently completed his doctorate on Thomas Jefferson, England and the Anglo-Virginian. Christopher’s current research interest lies in examining Jefferson as a political and cultural individual via the work of Algernon Sydney, Lawrence Sterne, and wine. Christopher previously served as a schoolteacher and Deputy Head at Kimbolton School, Cambridgeshire, teaching American politics and history. He also served on the executive committee of the British Association for American Studies (2009-2012).
Ann Bausum (BA, Beloit College) is an independent scholar and children’s book author. Ann writes about history for readers of all ages from her home in southern Wisconsin. For the past quarter century, she has enriched the understanding of young people and teens by introducing them to consequential and dramatic historical events that may be underrepresented or misrepresented in their schoolbooks. Her books frequently explore issues of social justice, including the civil rights movement of the American South, free speech, immigration, women’s voting rights, and queer history. Ann will research, write, and publish a nonfiction book for teens about the intersection of the public and private lives of Thomas Jefferson with members of the enslaved community at Monticello and related properties.
Charles “Tony” Boll (MFA, University of California, Riverside) is an independent scholar, artist, researcher, and writer focusing on short stories and novels set in the American South. His non-fiction work centers on the political theories of Thomas Jefferson and the development of modern agrarian societies. Currently, Tony is working on a book, in the style of Rutger Bregman and Wendell Berry, that explores the intersection of Neo-Jeffersonianism, Degrowth, and New Urbanism theories and their applications in rural American communities.
Sara Collini (PhD, George Mason University) is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Texas at Arlington,
where she researches and teaches about early America, slavery, women’s history, the
history of medicine, digital history, and public history. Her manuscript project, Enslaved Women and Midwifery in Early America, is under contract with the University of Virginia Press and
explores the lives and work of enslaved midwives during the eras of the American
Revolution and Early Republic in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South
Carolina.
Stephanie DeGooyer (PhD, Cornell University) is an Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature and a member of the Curriculum in Global Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She works at the intersection of eighteenth-century literary studies, legal history, and political theory, with particular attention to how early modern and Enlightenment-era concepts of naturalization, sovereignty, and asylum shape contemporary debates about immigration and political membership.
Brian Dempsey (PhD, Middle Tennessee State University) is an Associate Professor of History at the University of North Alabama and Director of the UNA Public History Center. His research explores the intersections of landscape, memory, and cultural identity, with expertise in Southern cultural history and music heritage. His scholarship spans diverse projects from Mississippi Delta cultural landscapes to the public memory of Thomas Jefferson. Brian is currently at work on a book manuscript titled, Nearer the Common Heart: Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson in American Memory. The book explores the evolution of the Hemings-Jefferson story, particularly as a function of relationships between scholarship, creative representation, and public history.
Noah Duell (MA, University of Virginia) is an architectural historian, preservationist, and museum development professional working primarily with historic house museums and cultural heritage sites. He currently serves as a Senior Development Officer for the Fraunces Tavern Museum in New York City, where he raises support for the Museum’s capital projects, exhibitions, and growing membership program. Noah will explore the architectural history of the First Monticello by expanding his thesis into a book-length text. Tentatively titled The First Monticello, this book seeks to recover the story of the development and construction of Thomas Jefferson’s first mountaintop estate, beginning in 1767 and concluding in 1796.
Evan Friss (PhD, City University of New York) is a professor of history at James Madison University and the author of three books.
His most recent, The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore (Viking) was a New York Times bestseller and one of Time magazine’s “100 Must-Read Books of 2024.” Evan has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and other popular outlets, as well as lecturing at the Park Avenue Armory, the Charleston Library Society, the American Philosophical Society, the Benjamin Franklin House, and Harvard University. Evan’s current book project, Lists: A Human History, narratively explores the power of lists and humans’ changing relationships with them. In this monograph, Evan will explore several key historical figures, most notably Thomas Jefferson. Evan’s residency at Monticello will enable him to write about Jefferson’s relationship to lists over the course of his life in richer detail.
VanJessica Gladney (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Boston, specializing in early American history, slavery, and public memory. Her scholarship explores the intersections of political unrest, race, and historical interpretation, with particular focus on the Massachusetts Regulation (also known as Shays’s Rebellion) and the broader currents of crowd action in the late eighteenth century.
Rebecca Brenner Graham (PhD, American University) is a postdoctoral research assistant at Brown University. Rebecca coordinates Brown 2026—a university-wide initiative to observe the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. She is currently writing a book on the American Revolution in female millennial popular culture. Rebecca also teaches a course on the same topic for the History Department at Brown.
Gabriel Despres Jones (MA, University of Leicester) is a heritage professional with 25+ years of experience in the study, preservation and exhibition of historic and archaeological objects. He is an archival researcher, archaeologist, curator, and conservator. Gabriel curates digital heritage spaces using digital preservation technologies and visualization tools to specifically support placemaking initiatives for under-represented historic post-conflict communities. Gabriel’s work with Canada’s Black Legacy Collective (BLC) serves as the nexus for his research project. Studying digital databases developed by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Gabriel will collaborate with the Black Legacy Collective to create an immersive digital museum portal open to the public by 2028.
Jacqueline Langholtz (EdD, University of Virginia) has over two decades of experience in the museum field including leading staff management and training, teacher professional development, K-12 school programming, community engagement, and fundraising efforts at museums. Her doctoral research focuses on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in the museum setting and the role of museums as community partners in supporting and advancing SEL.
Ajay B. Limaye (PhD, California Insitute of Technology) is an Associate Professor of Environmental Sciences and a faculty affiliate in Environmental Thought and Practice at the University of Virginia. Limaye has established a leading research group in the study of landscape evolution. His contributions to river research and education were recognized with a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2023 and the Tice Prize for Faculty Excellence in 2024. He is a frequent reviewer for scientific journals, NASA, and NSF. Limaye’s work using creative modes to share the stories of rivers with the public was featured on WVTF (Radio IQ) in Virginia. His record as a leading river researcher and educator uniquely position him to uncover new perspectives on Thomas Jefferson’s legacy for rivers in Virginia.
David McCormick (MA, Case Western Reserve University) is a multi-instrumentalist, scholar, and educator recognized for curating imaginative performances, creating educational opportunities for students of all ages, and guiding prominent arts organizations through the challenges of our time. In 2021, David took the helm of Early Music America as its sixth executive director, where he is working to create a more inclusive, equitable space for all who engage with historical performance. David’s current book project looks at the history of Black fiddlers at Monticello. David will analyze the lives and music of the Hemings and Scott family musicians.
Kori Price (BS, Virginia Tech) is a multidisciplinary artist, photographer, and writer based in Charlottesville, Virginia. She currently works as a full-time freelance photographer and artist. Kori has shown work in multiple group and solo exhibitions, has been a writer-in-residence at McGuffey Arts Center, served as a former host of CreativeMornings Charlottesville, and co-founded the Charlottesville Black Arts Collective (CBAC) where she currently serves as their president.Kori’s art practice has increasingly become influenced by the crossroads of the African Diaspora and United States History. Kori will conduct research seeking stories of local Black women from Monticello’s history who protected and defended their families and their communities, linking the past and present work Black women have done in this area to fight for racial and social equality. Kori intends to incorporate this research into a curated group exhibition.
Galia Sims (PhD, University of Texas at Austin) is a professor of history at Germanna Community College specializing in African American history. She has held positions at several museums, archives, and cultural institutions, including the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center, the Bullock Texas State History Museum, the Harry Ransom Center, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, and the Fredericksburg Area Museum. Gaila will examine the relationship between public memory and memorialization by studying Monticello’s recent contributions to this landscape: the Contemplative Site (2023), the Burial Ground for Enslaved People (2022), and “The Life of Sally Hemings” exhibit (2018).
MaKshya Tolbert (MFA, University of Virginia) practices poetry and placemaking in Virginia, where her grandmother raised her. She was the 2025 Art in Library Spaces Artist-in-Residence at the University of Virginia. Tolbert’s debut book of poems, Shade is a place (Penguin Books, 2025), was the 2024 National Poetry Series winner. Tolbert is currently working on a National Memorial to the Underground Railroad, and co-stewards Fernland Studios, an open-ended studio insistent on rest, rejuvenation, and reciprocity as a core compositional practice. She is the 2025-2030 Associate Editor in Poetry for Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (ISLE), published quarterly by Oxford University Press. MaKshya is designing and iterating ecological fieldwork and notebooks as modes of ‘study’ for a second book that engages Jefferson’s roundabouts via sense of place. Immersed in Monticello’s atmospheric and environmental conditions, this walking-as-research project meanders through Jefferson’s inner and shared life, Black enslaved laborers’ lives, and MaKshya’s own life.
T.J. Tomlin (PhD, University of Missouri) is a Professor of History at the University of Northern Colorado. He is the author of A Divinity for All Persuasions: Almanacs and Early American Religious Life (Oxford, 2014). T.J.’s current research project explores the history of lotteries in early America and the United States. This book will explore the Jefferson Lottery of 1826 as a reflection of broader trends in nineteenth century American politics, economics, and religious life, as well as a barometer of Jefferson’s reputation and political clout at the end of his life.
Diego von Lieres (MSc, London School of Economics) is a PhD student in Government at the University of Virginia, where he studies political theory with a focus on early modern theories of state sovereignty, classical republicanism, and the way constitutional orders deal with states of exception or emergency. He is currently developing a project that investigates the early origins of executive emergency power in the United States, including Thomas Jefferson’s conception of prerogative and its legacy for U.S. foreign policy and constitutional thought. His work situates these questions within broader debates in American political
development, international law, and constitutional jurisprudence. An interdisciplinary scholar, he is a Graduate Fellow of the John L. Nau III History and Principles of Democracy Lab, where his research investigates the persistence of the frontier mythos as a cultural and political symbol in American statecraft.
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