Graduate Student Teaching Assistant First Year Experience Coordinator Shayla is a current MA student in UGA's history department. She studies the interactions between social change and disease in the United States during the nineteenth century. As witnessed with the COIVD-19 pandemic, tragedy and disaster often reveal the metaphorical cracks in a given social order. It is through the responses to these events that the values of a city, a state, or even an entire nation shine through. Though studying when, how, and why social structures/program break down or change in the face of an epidemic is interesting, Shayla plans to pursue a career in public history. Under the advisement of Dr. Akela Reason, she is attempting to complete the Certificate in Museum Studies. Additionally, Shayla is proudly serving on the HGSA as First Year Experience Coordinator during the 2024-2025 academic year. If you made it this far, you must really want to know more about me, my research, or read that I am from Idaho and want to know how I ended up in Georgia. Feel free to email me and we can discuss these topics while nurse my crippling caffeine addiction over coffee. GO DAWGS! Research Research Areas: U.S. 19th & 20th Century Early America Cultural & Intellectual Medicine and Public Health Public History Education Education: BA, Idaho State University, History, minor in Business, 2023