Students
Amelia Blakely
Graduate Research Assistant
Amelia has Bachelor's degrees in Journalism and Philosophy from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. As she pursues her M.A. in Public History at MTSU, she is working with the Center on a preservation assessment of the Coomer Barn in Rutherford County.
Amelia is interested in rural American history, environmental history, and economic history. Visit her Web site at www.ameliablakelywrites.com.
Elizabeth Webb
Graduate Research Assistant
Elizabeth is in her first year with the Center. She began working on the Teaching with Primary Sources-Southern Region program in the summer of 2025. Elizabeth creates content for the monthly newsletter and the TPS Teachers Network, and assists the program in a variety of other areas.
Elizabeth received her B.A. in History from MTSU in 2025. Her research interests include women's history, craft history, socio-economic history, and history education.
Graduate Research Assistant
Zoë is pursuing her M.A. in Public History while working as a Graduate Research Assistant with the CHP. She started her work in the Teaching with Primary Sources – Southern Region over the summer, after finishing her internship with the Library of Congress and their TPS team.
Zoë graduated with a B.A. in History from Agnes Scott College, where she discovered a passion for researching late 19th-century English, Irish, and American culture and gothic literature, a subject she continues to focus on now that she is at MTSU. For more, check out her LinkedIn profile.
Outside of academics, Zoë enjoys creative writing, video games, and all things gothic horror.
Stephen Simmons
Graduate Research Assistant
With a B.S. and an M.A. from MTSU in hand, Stephen is a doctoral student in the Public History Ph.D. Program. He is working on a historic cemetery survey of Cannon County. He is also providing assistance for the Trail of Tears project that the Center is doing with the Georgia Department of Transportation. Stephen's interests are in cemeteries, the roots of southern violence, ethnohistory, and southern Indigenous history. See his LinkedIn profile for more information.
Joshua Brown
Graduate Research Assistant
Joshua is a graduate of Anderson University, where he majored in History and Spanish. He is currently assisting with a historical assessment of the Morton Funeral Home in Columbia, Tennessee. Joshua's research interests are in African American history, slavery, and Caribbean history.
Joshua's LinkedIn profile can be found
here.
Paige Hurley
Graduate Research Assistant
Paige has degrees from Columbia State Community College and Eastern Mennonite University, where she majored in History and Political Science. Based at the Heritage Center of Murfreesboro & Rutherford County, she is working on the Toussaint L'Ouverture Cemetery preservation plan and the Merrill-Williams House interpretive panels. She recently completed the adaptive reuse section of a historic structure report on the Lawrenceburg Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
Paige is interested in Nashville's 1970s feminist movement, post-Civil War Franklin and Middle Tennessee history, and women's history.
Aisha Karamustafic
Graduate Research Assistant
Aisha is a recent graduate of MTSU, where she majored in History. She is working on an African American history tour for the Heritage Center of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County and on a walking tour of Red Boiling Springs. Aisha's research interests are in the Bosnian genocide and the World War II home front in Middle Tennessee. You can learn more about her here:
https://ak8a11.wixsite.com/aisha-kara.
Blaine Howard
Graduate Research Assistant
Blaine graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2024 with a major in Law, History, and Society and a minor in African American and Diaspora Studies. She is currently working on a variety of projects with Drs. Gatson and West. Her research interests include African American women's history and racialized sexual violence in the 20th century.
