Neil M. Maher
TEACHING
Maher has taught more than one dozen distinct courses on the undergraduate and graduate levels that help students explore the environmental and political history of the United States. He has also guided undergraduate students into master’s programs in history, worked with master’s students to obtain full funding for Ph.D. programs, and helped doctoral students gain tenure-track positions in university history and environmental studies departments.
For such efforts, he was designated a Master Teacher (2019) and received the Robert W. Van Houten Award for Teaching Excellence (2009). These are the two most prestigious teaching awards offered at NJIT. Maher has also received the Excellence in Adivising Award (2009) given by the NJIT undergraduate Student Senate.
COURSES
HIST 490
Environmental Inequality & Justice in Postwar America
HIST 377
Cities in History
HIST 334
Environmental History of North America
HIST 654
The 1960s Era in American History
HIST 657
Food History and American Culture
HIST 637
Global Environmental History
STUDENTS
FORMER PH.D. STUDENTS
Mars Plater
“Escaping Gotham: Working People and the Struggle Over Urban Nature, 1800-1900”
Assistant Professor, History, University of Connecticut-Stanford
Sara Grossman
“A Natural History of Data: Measuring American Weather from 1820 to Hurricane Sandy”
Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies, Bryn Mawr College
Kara Schlichting
“Planning the Waterfront: Environmental Perceptions and Resource Access on the Metropolitan Coast of Long Island”
Assistant Professor, History, CUNY-Queens
Sevin Yildiz
“The Hackensack Meadowlands in the Shadow of Gotham: Scientific City-Building Across the 20th Century”
Assistant Professor, Urban Planning and Policy, University of Illinois-Chicago
Richard Mizelle
“Backwater Blues: The Mississippi Flood Disaster, Race, and the Remaking of Regional Identity, 1900-1930”
Associate Professor, History, University of Houston
Robert Lifset
“Storm King Mountain & The Birth of Modern American Environmentalism, 1962-1980”
Associate Professor, History, University of Oklahoma
David Kinkela
“Pesticide Exchange: DDT and the International Context of U.S. Environmentalism, 1943-1992”
Professor, History, SUNY-Freedonia
FORMER M.A. STUDENTS
Robert Hoberman
“The End of These Woods: The New Jersey Pinelands Jetport and American Environmentalism”
Ph.D. History Program, University of California, Davis
Katherine Keirns
“The Brush is Mightier than the Sword: How Drawing Nature Saved West Point”
Ph.D. History Program, Princeton University
Steve Leone
“Rest in Peace?: How Immigration, Sanitation, and Religion Transformed Death in Mid-Nineteenth Century Manhattan”
Ph.D. History Program, University of Oregon
Raechel Lutz
“Who Cuts Your Grass?: How Ideas About Nature and Labor Have Grown New Jersey’s Lawns”
Ph.D. History Program, Rutgers University-New Brunswick
Brian Tyrrell
“’My Dirty Stream’: Pete Seeger, Folk Music, and the Proletarian Influence on Environmentalism”
Ph.D. History Program, University of California, Santa Barbara
Phillip Brophy
“From Trough to Treasure: Portaging Through History with a Wooden Dugout Canoe”
Social Studies Teacher, Hackensack (NJ) High School
Dennis Quinn
“Landmarks and Status: A Consideration of Space and Citizenship in Two Greenwich Village Preservation Movements”
Social Studies Teacher, Seton Hall Prep, West Orange (NJ)
Beer in Brick City: A Talk and Tasting
Newark Museum
November 30, 2023 (7:00-9:00 pm EST)
Neil M. Maher
Federated Department of History
NJIT—Rutgers University, Newark