Jonson Miller, PhD

Teaching Professor of History

Department of History

Office: 5015 MacAlister
jwm54@drexel.edu
Phone: 215.895.0994

Education:

BS, Geology, West Virginia University, 1998
MS, Geology, University of Wisconsin, 2000
PhD, Science and Technology in Society, Virginia Tech, 2008

Curriculum Vitae:

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Research Interests:

American history
Military history
History of engineering and technology

Bio:

I had worked all the way up from a BS into a PhD in geology before becoming more interested in the history of science and technology than in doing science. I then switched to an interdisciplinary PhD program on science and technology at Virginia Tech. I have taught at Drexel since 2007. My teaching has evolved over time from a focus on American history and the history of technology to, increasingly, military history. While my research has focused on the history of American engineering, even that research had a military focus (a history of the Virginia Military Institute as an early school for engineering).

Courses Taught

HIST 201: US History to 1815
HIST 202: US History from 1815 to 1900
HIST 230: US Military History I (before 1900)
HIST 231: US Military History II (since 1900)
HIST 331: The American Revolution
HIST 338: The Vietnam War

Selected Publications:

Miller, Jonson. "Pennsylvania's 1869 Avondale Mine Disaster: A Trans-Atlantic Welsh Tragedy." Llafur: The Journal of Welsh People's History. Forthcoming.
Miller, Jonson. Engineering Manhood: Race and the Antebellum Virginia Military Institute. Amherst, MA: Lever Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.11675767
Miller, Jonson. “Drexel’s Vietnam War.” In Building Drexel: The University and Its City, 1891-2016. Edited by Richardson Dilworth and Scott Gabriel Knowles. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2016.
Falcone, Alissa, Scott Gabriel Knowles, Jonson Miller, Tiago Saraiva, and Amy Slaton. “Continuous Reinvention: A History of Engineering Education at Drexel University.” In Building Drexel: The University and Its City, 1891-2016. Edited by Richardson Dilworth and Scott Gabriel Knowles. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2016.
Miller, Jonson. “Pathways and Purposes of the ‘French Tradition’ of Engineering in Antebellum America: The Case of the Virginia Military Institute.” Engineering Studies 5.2 (2013): 117-136.
Gary Lee Downey, Juan C. Lucena, Barbara Moskal, Thomas Bigley, Chris Hays, Brent Jesiek, Liam Kelly, Jane Lehr, Jonson Miller, Amy Nichols- Belo, Sharon Ruff, and Rosamond Parkhurst. “The Globally Competent Engineer: Working Effectively with People Who Define Problems Differently.” Journal of Engineering Education 95 (April 2006): 107-122