Faculty and Staff
Department Chair | Dept. Administrative Aide | Full-time Faculty | Part-time Faculty
Department Chair
Email: james.furgol@montgomerycollege.edu
Phone: 240-567-5178
Office Location: Rockville Campus, HU 272
Biography
Department Chair James Furgol, originally from Edinburgh, Scotland, has been fascinated with history since he was a child. Moving from Britain to the U.S. in 1987, he grew up in the Montgomery County area and attended and completed his AA in General Studies at Montgomery College, Rockville campus from 2003-05. He transferred to the College of Wooster, OH and completed his BA in 2007 with a major in history, and minor in philosophy. His interest in philosophy centers on ethics and epistemology, the study of knowledge, which crosses over repeatedly into his history research and professional work. Before entering graduate school, he began his work in disaster recovery operations by joining AmeriCorps NCCC and serving on multiple post-Katrina missions in the Gulf of Mexico region.From 2009-11, he attended the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), and completed his MA in historical studies with a focus on the development of the U.S. and British healthcare systems following WW II, with a particular focus on the role medical associations played. A defining experience for him was his time as a research assistant for the Maryland State government’s Office of HIV/AIDS prevention (2011-12), which impressed upon him the importance of a sound and efficient bureaucracy. From that point onward, Professor Furgol has taught history and political science courses, served as a reservist for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (2020-26) and completed multiple disaster deployments across the transcontinental U.S. He strives to demonstrate to his students the relevance of historical studies to the present, particularly how the field’s research skills provide students with the ability to analyze contemporary political and social events from a scholarly perspective.
Professor Furgol has taught HIST 114 (The World in the 20th Century), 116 (World History: A Comparative Survey from the Ancient World to 1500), 117 (World History, A Comparative Survey from 1500 to the Present), 190 (History of Sports in America), 200 (U.S. History, 1492-1865), 201 (U.S. History, 1865-present), POLI 101 (American Government), and 203 (International Relations).
Department Administrative Aide
Email: michele.craig@montgomerycollege.edu
Phone: 240-567-2324
Office Location: Rockville Campus, HU-270
Full-time Faculty
History
Email: sadegh.foghani@montgomerycollege.edu
Phone: 240-567-2347
Office Location: Rockville Campus, HU 273
Biography
Mohammad Sadegh Foghani obtained his PhD in History from the University of South Carolina in 2018. He taught courses in world history, history of science, history of technology, and history of Islamic societies at Auburn University and the University of South Carolina before coming to Montgomery College in 2020. Dr. Foghani received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tehran, his Master of Science Degree in Science and Technology Studies from the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, and his Master of Arts Degree in History from Iowa State University.Dr. Foghani has conducted research in France, Iran, California, Missouri, and Mexico. His doctoral dissertation explores the development of reproductive biomedicine, stem cell, and animal biotechnology since the early 1990s in Iran. When he was conducting his dissertation research, he found many revealing stories involving Iranian STEM workers who live(d) outside Iran. These stories encouraged him to study the diasporic community of Iranian STEM professionals. In 2016, he traveled to Paris and Nantes to investigate the life and career of Mehdi Bazargan, who was the first prime minister of post-revolutionary Iran. Dr. Foghani’s research investigates the role that Bazargan’s engineering background, French education, and American Pragmatism played in the formation of his religious and political thought. As a post-doctoral residential fellow, Dr. Foghani conducted research at Linda Hall Library in Kansas City in 2019, where he studied American Pragmatism and Charles S. Peirce Papers.
Email: sylvea.hollis@montgomerycollege.edu
Phone: 240-567-2345
Office Location: Rockville Campus, HU 276
Biography
Associate Professor Sylvea Hollis earned a Ph.D. in US History, with a concentration in African American History from the University of Iowa. As a graduate student they developed and taught their own courses in African American History; created civically engaged programming with the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies; and earned a graduate certificate in Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies. At Montgomery College, Hollis teaches courses in African History, African American History, Early US History, Public History, and Gender and Women's Studies.Before coming to Montgomery College in the fall of 2020, Hollis was an NPS-Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and taught courses in gender and sexuality in the American Studies Department at The George Washington University. They earned a MA in History Museum Studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program (SUNY-Oneonta) and has extensive experience in the field of public history, working with the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, American Alliance of Museums, and the National Park Service.
Dr. Hollis currently runs a blog new window that explores the intersections of archives, humanities, and teaching.
Publications:
“The Rhetoric of Freedom: Remembering Slavery during the Semiquincentennial of the American Revolution,” (The Public Historian, forthcoming in February 2024)
“’I like to say I’m from Birmingham’: John Rhoden’s Memory(s) of Home,” in Determined to Be: Sculptures of John Rhoden, edited by Brittany Webb (University of Washington Press, forthcoming in February 2024)
Second Author with Tondra Loder-Jackson, “Fantasizing Education for Liberation in Jim Crow Birmingham: Angela Davis’s Formative Years and Intertwined Legacy with Pioneer Educator and Prison Abolitionist Carrie A. Tuggle,” in #BlackEducatorsMatter: The Experiences of Black Teachers in an Anti-Black World, edited by Dr. Darrius Stanley (Harvard Education Press, forthcoming February 2024)
"The African American History Survey as an Intellectual Product," new windowBlack Perspectives: African American Intellectual History Society--December 23, 2022
Email: michelle.moran@montgomerycollege.edu
Phone: 240-567-7276
Office Location: Rockville Campus, HU-267
Biography
Michelle Moran graduated from Loyola University New Orleans with a B.A. in Communications (Print Journalism) and History. After working as a historian for a cultural resource management firm in Maryland, she earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in history and a graduate certificate in women’s studies from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Campaign. She taught at the University of Nevada in Reno before coming to Montgomery College, where she has offered courses in world history, women’s history, U.S. history, and U.S. and world affairs. She also helps organize the annual Humanities Students’ Cherry Blossom Conference. Dr. Moran was a Smithsonian Faculty Fellow and currently serves as the coordinator of the Paul Peck Humanities Institute Internship Program, placing students at Montgomery History and the Library of Congress.Dr. Moran’s experience and training have taught her to value public history, and she believes in the necessity of teaching people to write their own history. Her particular research interests in public health policy, disease, and the body continue to teach her about the vital need for close collaboration between STEM and humanities disciplines. She is the author of Colonizing Leprosy: Imperialism and the Politics of Public Health in the United States.
Political Science
Biography
Dr. Shim grew up in Maryland and lived here for most of her life. She attended the University of Maryland for her undergraduate as well as her Ph.D., where she studied Government and Politics with a focus on Political Theory. She has taught college and high school students and plans to teach for many more years. She lives in Ellicott City with her husband and their two daughters (and two cats). Her hobbies are eating, sudoku, and reading.
Part-time Faculty
History
Email: Lucinda.Grinnell@montgomerycollege.edu
Phone: 240-567-2297
Office Location: Rockville Campus, HU-001
Biography
Dr. Lucy Grinnell (she/they) earned a PhD in Latin American History and a Graduate Certificate in Women's Studies from the University of New Mexico. She has published widely in LGBTQ+ history/studies and has lived in Mexico City and Nicaragua. She is a voracious reader and loves to travel.Courses Taught
History 112
Office Location: Germantown Campus
Courses Taught
History 117 and History 116
Office Location: Rockville Campus, HU-008
Courses Taught
Michael Petty teaches HIST 114 (World History in the 20th century), HIST 190 (History of Sport in America), HIST 200 (History of U.S., a Survey Course: from the Colonial Times to 1865), & HIST 201 (History of the U.S., A Survey Course, from 1865 to the Present).
Political Science
Office Location: Rockville Campus, HU-008
Courses Taught
Andrew Krieger teaches POLI 101 (U.S. Government) and courses for the Sociology department.
In Memoriam
Email: lee.annis@montgomerycollege.edu
Phone: 240-567-7281
Office Location: Rockville Campus
Biography
Professor James Lee Annis joined Montgomery College in 1986 and has taught at all three campuses. He grew up in Rockville, attended Montgomery County Public Schools, graduated from Hanover College (IN) and received his M.A. He received his PhD from Ball State University in 1985. He is the author of Howard Baker: Conciliator in an Age of Crisis and with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Senators, 1911-2001: Portraits of Leadership in a Century of Change. His next book, Big Jim Eastland: The Godfather of Mississippi, is scheduled for publication in 2016 by the University Press of Mississippi. He also completed the Eastland Book in 2016.
Office Location: Germantown Campus
Biography
Professor Alonzo Smith was born and grew up in Washington, D.C. and he remembered when schools and public facilities in Virginia, the District and Maryland were segregated. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University, his Master’s from Howard University, and his doctorate from UCLA. Before coming to Montgomery College, he taught in California, Nebraska, and Virginia. He had lived a total of four years in Africa, three in the Republic of the Ivory Coast, and one in Sierra Leone. Among the African nations he had visited were the Congo and South Africa. He had been employed as a social worker for the Urban League of Nebraska, and he served from 1991-92 as project director for a USAID project for war-displaced people in Sierra Leone. From 1994 to 2005 he was a program researcher and curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. He was one of two curators for the museum’s observance of the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s school desegregation decision, entitled “Separate Is Not Equal: Brown v. Board of Education.” He was married, with two grown children, and lived in Rockville. Professor Smith taught African American, United States, and African history, and his research interests were in the field of recent African American history.Alonzo Smith, Prominent D.C.-Area Civil Rights Activist, Dies at 79 new window