After receiving her BA in history from California State University Fullerton, Stephanie studied American history at Claremont Graduate University. Her 2003 MA thesis titled "Propagation of the Fittest: The Endurance and Influence of the Human Betterment Foundation" explores her interest in eugenics and the large number of sterilizations that took place in California's state mental institutions.
Stephanie then spent the following two years working for the Learning in LA project of Claremont Graduate School which was directed by Charles T. Kerchner, Hollis P. Allen Professor of Education at Claremont Graduate University and David Menefee-Libey, Professor of Politics and Coordinator of the Public Policy Analysis Program at Pomona College. My role as project researcher quickly led to the writing of various sections of the history of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles School District. The project has resulted in a forthcoming book regarding educational reform in Los Angeles and institutional change. Harvard Educational Press will publish the book later this fall under the title Learning from L.A.: Institutional Change in American Public Education.
In the Fall of 2005, Stephanie continued her academic career at the University of Southern California. Here, she has resumed her research of eugenics and California. In August of 2008, she passed her Qualifying Exams and started working on her prospectus. Her dissertation will explore the paradoxical themes of California as the place where the white race would be rejuvenated in between the years 1870 to 1940 and the fear, fueled by high incarceration rates to the states mental institution, that the degenerates of the country were flooding the state. Her interests are centered around race, medicine and gender and how these constructs in California were influenced by or influential to American culture. |
