Ms. Frank earned her doctorate in History at the University of Oregon with a dissertation entitled “Sanitizing History: Environmental Cleanup and Historic Preservation in U.S. West Mining Communities.” She received a BA and MA in History from Colorado State University, where she wrote an undergraduate honor’s thesis about Depression-era film in the United States and a master’s thesis about historic movie theaters, architecture, and national-scale identity shifts in Denver, Colorado. Her interest in the intersections of environmental, architectural, women’s, race, and transcultural histories in the realms of public history and historic preservation have coalesced not only in her academic roles, but also her public history work with organizations such as the National Council on Public History, HistoriCorps, and the Public Lands History Center.
Her book project is titled: Sanitizing History: Environmental Cleanup and Historic Preservation in U.S. West Mining Communities