Bio:

A native of Summerville, Mark returned to South Carolina to pursue his PhD in history. After a career in humanitarian action in French-speaking West Africa, he directed a global research network on child well-being housed at Columbia University. In the present tense, he studies how public history, enacted strategically, can compel truthful confrontations with the past to increase the possibility of justice and equality today and in the future. In studying race, class, gender, and the environment in the American Southeast, he is exploring how history points us toward more equitable, sustainable ways of living in society. Mark has earned graduate degrees from Harvard University and the University of Notre Dame and serves on professional committees with the South Carolina Federation of Museums and the National Council on Public History. In the summer of 2024, he joyfully worked as a research assistant at the Center for Civil Rights History and Research.