By

Gabrielle Westcott

Historian

Gabrielle Westcott is a doctorally trained and published historian specializing in applied U.S. history. Her research engages the emerging methodology of emotions history to explore how emotions shape policy. As an expert in the historical analysis of emotions, Gabrielle will contribute to advancing the development of a methodology for measuring and analyzing the impact of historical trauma on transportation behavior. She has studied and taught on the role race, class, and gender have played in shaping how U.S. laws, foreign and domestic policies, and institutions have developed over time. She has also developed and administered educational curricula to make historical learning practical for a lay audience.

In the last year, Gabrielle led an archival research team as part of the Primus Project at Trinity College to uncover the history of the college’s engagement with systems of slavery and white supremacy. The research database that her team produced is currently being used to investigate ways to make the campus more equitable, inform the college’s policy on building names, promote a re-examination of the ways the college commemorates individuals, and reimagine the lived relationship between the campus and the broader community.

Gabrielle recently performed a historical review of changes in the use of the Ohio River through the economic transition from the coal economy as part of a project for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and was a co-editor of the educational playbook for NCHRP 08-124: Quantifying the Impacts of Corridor Management. She is currently a principal researcher for Metro Analytics’ Historical Equity Action Lens (H.E.A.L.) – an applied evidence-based methodology for diagnosing the ongoing costs of historically rooted systemic inequities in transportation networks and applying that knowledge to: develop more targeted equity performance measures, more effective solutions to current challenges, and more effective methods for preventing and anticipating future challenges.

Education

  • Ph.D., History, University of Connecticut (Expected 2023)
  • M.A., History, University of Connecticut, 2015
  • B.A., History, Whitman College, 2012

Skills & Specializations

  • Academic research and writing
  • Development of applied historical methodologies
  • Equity studies
  • The role of emotions in policy formation and implementation

Projects

No projects listed

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