Katrine Barber (Ph.D., Washington State University, 1999)
Associate Professor, Director, Center for Columbia River History

Katy Barber has directed oral history projects, developed digital exhibits, and organized public programs. Her research is focused on the social history of Columbia River communities and on a World War II-era conscientious objectors’ camp on the Oregon Coast. Her book, Death of Celilo Falls, was published in 2005 by the University of Washington Press.

Katy Barber currently directs the Center for Columbia River History (CCRH), a public history partnership that includes PSU, Washington State University, Vancouver and the Washington State Historical Society. CCRH conducts interdisciplinary research projects, publishes material in text and electronic formats, sponsors free public programs and teacher seminars, and develops curricula.

William Lang (PhD, University of Delaware, 1973)
Professor of History

Bill Lang is an environmental historian whose most recent publications include Great River of the West: Essays on the Columbia River, an edited volume (1999) and Confederacy of Ambition: William Winlock Miller and the Making of Washington Territory (1996). He is also co-editor of the multi-volume Oregon Encyclopedia Project scheduled for completion in conjunction with the Oregon State Sesquicentennial in 2009.

Patricia A. Schechter (PhD, Princeton, 1993)
Professor of History

Patricia Schechter’s public history projects at PSU have involved community partnerships with the YWCA of Greater Portland, the Oregon Nurses Association, and the Oregon Trail Chapter of the American Red Cross.  She is currently working on a multimedia learning project entitled “Pasts and Possibilities: Problems in Oral History Method.” In 2001, she published Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform, 1880-1930 with the University of North Carolina Press.

Affiliated Scholars

Greg Shine (MA, San Francisco State University, 2000)
Chief Ranger & Historian, Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, Vancouver, Washington
and Historian, Northwest Cultural Resources Institute

At Fort Vancouver, Greg serves as chief ranger and historian, overseeing the public history program and managing historic site interpretation (history-based special events, tours and talks, living history, costumed interpretation, cultural demonstrations, education programs and other public programs).

In 2006, working with Dr. William Lang, he established the Public History Field School (HST 511 Public History Lab) as a partnership program between Portland State University and NPS.

Greg has published numerous studies, reports, and technical papers for the National Park Service as well as articles for several journals and magazines.

Donna Sinclair (MA, Portland State University, 2004)

Donna Sinclair completed her MA thesis in history entitled “Contested Visions of Place: People, Power, and Perception on the Columbia's North Shore, 1805-1913.” She is currently an independent oral historian whose has worked with a number of local and state-wide organizations, most recently Reed College and the US District Court of Oregon Historical Society. She also teaches capstones in partnership with the U.S.D.A. Forest Service and is in the Ph.D. in Urban Studies program at Portland State University.