Shannon M. Risk

Shannon M. Risk
Ph.D., University of Maine, 2009
Assistant Professor of History
Niagara University
Niagara Falls, New York

Shannon M. Risk recently completed her graduate work at the University of Maine. She also holds an M.A. in history from Maine (1996) and a B.A. from the University of Northern Iowa (1994). In the interim years between graduate degrees, Risk worked in the museum field, including the Susan B. Anthony House and the National Museum of American History. She was a 2008-2009 Canadian-U.S. Fulbright student at the University of New Brunswick, focusing on her dissertation project on Maine and New Brunswick woman suffrage movements in the nineteenth century. Risk was funded by the History Department, Canadian-American Center, Graduate School and Women’s Studies Program while at U-Maine. She also holds a minor graduate concentration in Women’s Studies from U-Maine. She has published articles in Maine History, the Hudson River Valley Review, Canadian Women and the State in the 20th- Century Maritimes, and Conflicts in American History: Early National Period and Expansion, 1790-1850.

Shannon M. Risk on her time at the University of Maine:

“My work at U-Maine was defined by the close relationships I formed there with faculty and fellow graduate students. Dr. Marli Weiner was a significant influence in my life, during both my M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. With her guidance, I was able to carve out a unique doctoral program, allowing me to work within three different entities: the History Department, the Canadian-American Center, and the Women’s Studies Program. This combination allowed me to fully pursue my topics of interest, women in history and the interplay between Canadian and American women during the nineteenth century. All three also aided me in my bid to earn a Fulbright award to study in Canada for a year. And thanks to my graduate colleagues (such as Robert Hodges and David Turpie, both of whom are handsome devils), my social life at U-Maine never suffered. The campus landscape is one of the most beautiful I have seen. When I needed to get away, I strapped on my cross-country skis and went off into the campus forest for a few hours.”