College of Arts and Sciences

Education:

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

Curriculum Vitae:

Research Interests:

• United States
• Nineteenth Century
• Military History
• Science and engineering

Bio:

Jonson Miller joined the history department in 2007, first as an adjunct professor still completing his doctoral dissertation, then as a full-time teaching professor. After earning two degrees in geology, Jonson switched to an interdisciplinary doctoral program in the history, sociology, and philosophy of science and technology at Virginia Tech, where he focused his research on the history of American engineers, culminating in his book Engineering Manhood: Race and the Antebellum Virginia Military Institute. Since then, he has studied and written about 19th-century Welsh coal miners in Pennsylvania and the history of Drexel. He is currently studying the civilian and US Army geological and topographic surveys of the American West during the 19th century.

Jonson regularly teaches historical methods courses, as well as the following courses:

• HIST 155: The Historical Jesus
• HIST 217: American Insurrection
• HIST 230: US Military History 1
• HIST 231: US Military History 2
• HIST 234: The US Civil War
• HIST 239: The Pacific War
• HIST 338: The Vietnam War

Selected Publications:

• Miller, Jonson. Engineering Manhood: Race and the Antebellum Virginia Military Institute. Amherst, MA: Lever Press, 2020. https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/k643b324r
• Miller, Jonson. “Pennsylvania’s 1869 Avondale Mine Disaster: A Trans-Atlantic Welsh Tragedy.” Llafur: The Journal of Welsh People’s History 12, no. 3 (2018): 15-39.
• 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