Center Associates

Luther Adams, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences (bio)

Dr. Luther Adams chairs the Ethnic, Gender and Labor Studies Major in the UWT’s School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, and teaches African-American and U.S. History. His book, Way Up North in Louisville: African American Migration in the Urban South, 1930-1970 (University of North Carolina Press, 2010) offers a powerful reinterpretation of the modern civil rights movement and black urban life within the contexts of migration, work, and urban renewal.

Elizabeth Bruch, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences (bio)

Elizabeth Bruch is an Assistant Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Tacoma. She received her J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School and her Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia. Her research, education and professional experience all center on international law and policy, particularly human rights. She is the author of Human Rights and Humanitarian Intervention: Law and Practice in the Field (Routledge, 2016).

Ariana Ochoa Camacho, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences (bio)

Ariana Ochoa Camacho, Ph.D. completed her dissertation work at New York University in American Studies. Her dissertation research project "Racial Longings, Migrant Belongings,” argued that the racial performances of Colombian migrants in New York are part of a creative petition that refuses racial ‘otherization,’ and are simultaneously shaped through the multiple cultural contexts of migrant lives. Ariana has also worked with students from diverse backgrounds at institutions like Community Colleges, San Francisco State University, Dartmouth College, Montclair State University and New York University in addition to her work mentoring for which she was awarded the "Inspiring Woman" award by the WNBA/NBA and the Hispanic Scholarship Foundation in 2012-2013.

Lucas Dambergs (bio)

Lucas Dambergs is a student in the Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies program at the University of Washington Tacoma. Lucas is interested in learning from people who are living out emancipatory and revolutionary lives that challenge our corporate, individualist, consumer society. He uses oral history to document and share their experiences, and to illustrate potential future directions for society that are being enacted in the here-and-now. Lucas is currently working his master’s project, a film about William “Bix” Bichsel, an activist priest who lived in Tacoma and was known for his anti-nuclear resistance and his community work with the homeless and mentally ill.

Rachel Hershberg, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences (bio)

Rachel Hershberg is an Assistant Professor of Community Psychology in the Social, Behavioral, and Human Sciences Division of the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. Rachel teaches a range of psychology courses as well as seminars on the development of immigrant youth and families. Her research examines (1) the development of social justice commitments in adolescents, and (2) the experiences of transnational and mixed-status migrant families from the Global South. She uses community-based and participatory research methods in her work with youth, families, and communities. Prior to joining the faculty at UWT, Rachel was a research professor at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

Michael Honey, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences (bio)

Dr. Honey is a scholar of Martin Luther King, Jr., and has published four acclaimed books of labor, civil rights and oral history. He received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, numerous book awards, as well as the MLK Award for Community Service from the Weyerhaueser Foundation. He serves as UWT’s Fred and Dorothy Haley Professor of Humanities and continues his work on Tacoma community and labor and social movement history.

Danica Miller, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, Lecturer (bio)

Danica Miller is Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington Tacoma, which resides on the ancestral homeland of my people, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians. Most of my previous work has been on American Indian literature and law, though I have recently begun to focus on the history of Puyallup tribal resistance and sovereignty. I am also deeply involved in the revitalization of my indigenous language, Lushootseed.

Michael Sullivan, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, Lecturer (bio)

Michael is teaching and working on developing the Tacoma Community History Project archival collection in the UWT Library, and editing a book project, “People of Tacoma,” with Michael Honey and Darlyne Reiter.

Diane Tilstra (bio)

As a community activist and philanthropy consultant, Diane Tilstra volunteers to serve as a Community Action Advisor for the Center. She has been actively engaged in non-profit fundraising in environmental, education and human services organizations. Most recently she served as Director of Development for People For Puget Sound and Northwest Trek Wildlife Park. Diane specializes in strategic planning, identifying stakeholders and building activist teams.

William Towey (bio)

William is a graduate student in the Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies program at the University of Washington Tacoma. His research is in the area of Natural Economy and self-sustaining systems of community based intergenerational wealth creation. William is a Research Project Manager for the Tacoma Urban League where he works on the Northwest Area Foundation's African American Financial Capability Initiative.

Justin Wadland, Head, Media and Digital Resources, UW Tacoma Library (bio)

Justin led the the digitization of oral histories in the Tacoma Community History Project. He holds an MLIS from the University of Washington and an MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific Lutheran University. His book Trying Home: The Rise and Fall of an Anarchist Utopia on Puget Sound will be published by Oregon State University Press in 2014. With launch of the UW Tacoma Digital Commons in early 2013, he is now actively involved in establishing a variety of digital collections that reflect the creative and intellectual work of the UW Tacoma community.

Charles Williams, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences (bio)

Dr. Charles Williams is Associate Professor of Political Science and Labor Studies in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Tacoma. His work has mainly focused on labor politics in the 1930s, particularly looking at issues of race, political radicalism, and the boundaries of liberalism in the New Deal era. His current research includes two projects focused on Tacoma. The first is an examination of labor politics and the expulsion of the Chinese community from the city in 1885; the second explores the political economy of contemporary Tacoma in relation to Seattle and the wider Puget Sound region.

Carolyn West, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences (bio)

Dr. Carolyn M. West is Associate Professor of Psychology at University of Washington Tacoma, a founding faculty of the Psychology Program and winner of the 2013 Distinguished Teaching Award. Her book and many articles studying partner violence and sexual assault has won a national audience and she travels and lectures widely, while also helping to develop local programs to reduce violence. She was the first holder of the UW Bartley Dobb Professorship for the Study and Prevention of Violence and continues to focus especially on issues relating to women of color.

Recent Associates

Alex Morrow, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, Lecturer (bio)

Alex Morrow teaches courses on labor, immigration, and American history for the Ethnic, Gender, and Labor Studies, and History majors at UW Tacoma. His research focuses on the history of labor and capitalism in our region. In particular, this work traces the emergence of an economy that is heavily reliant upon contingent forms of labor, and its consequences for urban development, notions of race, and the potential for labor radicalism. He has been a research fellow at the West Coast Poverty Center and a consultant for Seattle's Museum of History and Industry.