My name is Anna Halgash (she/her/hers) and I am a public historian based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. I recently obtained my Public History M.A. degree and Digital Humanities Certificate in 2023 at Northeastern University.

I graduated magna cum laude from The College of Wooster and double-majored in English and History. For my Fall 2019 semester, I studied abroad at University College Cork in Ireland. One of my Junior Independent Study capstone papers concerned how early twentieth-century scholars of British ballads romanticized Appalachia. My Senior Independent Study capstone paper built upon this research by exploring why Appalachian ballads seemed authentic to and resonated with folk singers during the 1960s American folk music revival. During June and July 2022, I was a visitor services/curatorial assistant for Shenandoah National Park, located outside of Luray, Virginia. I assisted the park with museum preservation and documentation, research for future interpretation, and museum maintenance and housekeeping. The park contains Rapidan Camp, the rustic, trout-fishing mountain cabin complex used by former President Herbert Hoover as his presidential retreat. My primary project involved researching why Hoover’s successor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, rejected Rapidan Camp in favor of creating Shangri-La (now Camp David) in northern Maryland.