I am a historian of the modern United States with special interests in the human sciences, social engineering, and therapeutic culture. My books are Kinship by Design: A History of Adoption in the Modern United States (University of Chicago Press, 2008), The Romance of American Psychology: Political Culture in the Age of Experts (University of California Press, 1995), and Psychiatry, Psychology, and Homosexuality (New York: Chelsea House, 1995). My work has been supported by fellowships at Harvard Law School and Radcliffe’s Bunting Institute, a major research grant from the Science and Technology Studies Program of the National Science Foundation, and a Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies. I have explored the possibilities of digital public history with The Adoption History Project and The Autism History Project. Since 2016, I have been the faculty director of the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics at the University of Oregon. I also served as Vice Provost for Academic Affairs from 2017 until 2020.