Student Projects and Opportunities

The Heritage Area provides a variety of experienced-based, hands-on learning opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and PhD level students.

For more information on student opportunities, please visit the Center for Historic Preservation.

Heather Bailey (B.S. in Psychology, Tennessee Technological University; M.A. in History, Middle Tennessee State University) is in her second year as a Public History Ph.D. student. Her research interests include heritage tourism, southern history, and rural and small town life. She has workd for the Paris-Henry County Heritage Center, the Albert Gore Research Center, previously served as a teaching assistant in the History Department, and currently serves as the assistant editor for the West Tennessee Historical Society Papers.This year she will be working on a variety of Civil War, Reconstruction, and sustainable heritage tourism projects.


Spurgeon King (B.S. in History and International Affairs, Florida State University; M.A. in History/Historic Preservation, Middle Tennessee State University) worked for more than 20 years as a preservation consultant in upstate New York and is currently a second year Ph.D. candidate in Public History. King is researching the Civil War in East Tennessee and has worked on projects for the Longstreet Headquarters in Hamblen County, and the Southeast Development Distrcict's ten county Civil War driving tour.


Susan Williams Knowles (B.A. in French and Art History, Vanderbilt University; M.L.S. George Peabody College; and M.A. in Art History, Vanderbilt University) is an independent museum curator who has organized exhibitions for the Frist Center, the Tennessee State Museum, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Knowles is continuing research on Tennessee art and architectural history and the marble industry in Tennessee.


Kevin Cason (B.A. in history, Belmont University; M.A. in history, Middle Tennessee State University), a Ph.D. candidate in the Public History program, has worked on the Iron Furnace Trails project and Tennessee Century Farms. His research interests include state and local history. Cason is currently working with the Tennessee Century Farm program and The Heritage Education Network web site while he writes his dissertation.


Paul Hoffman (B.A. in history, Vanderbilt University) served for six years in the Navy stationed in Japan and San Diego prior to moving back to Nashville. Working for a local historic restoration company he assisted in projects on Nashville landmarks such as the Ryman Auditorium, the Downtown Presbyterian Church, and the Tennessee State Capitol before setting his sights on graduate school. He is on the home stretch of his M.A. degree in historic preservation with a thesis project investigating the Avery Trace, the first land route into middle Tennessee.


Katherine Merzbacher (B.A. in History, Middle Tennessee State University) is passionate about the preservation of historic buildings and sites in the Southeast. Katherine has worked on several National Register of Historic Places nominations, preservation needs reports, and historic structure reports with the MTSU Center for Historic Preservation. She is currently finishing her M.A. degree in historic preservation and writing her thesis on the impact of the park and playground movements on the history and landscape design of Nashville's Centennial Park.


Megan Akerstrom (B.A. in history, New Mexico State University) is starting her second year on the historic preservationi track of MTSU's Public History program. Megan will be working for the Heritage Area at the Heritage Center while she finishes classes and researches her thesis on the impact of the Dixie Highway on Murfreesboro during the 1920s.