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Faculty Directory

Quin'Nita Cobbins-Modica
  • Title
    • Assistant Professor
  • Division Humanities Division
  • Department
    • History Department
  • Email
  • Office Location
    • Stevenson College Academic Building, 280
  • Office Hours Spring 2025: Wednesdays from 9:30a-11:30a or by appointment (email in advance to schedule a Zoom or in-person meeting). Zoom link on Canvas.
  • Mail Stop Stevenson Academic Services
  • Mailing Address
    • 1156 High Street
    • Santa Cruz CA 95064
  • Faculty Areas of Expertise African American / Black Studies, Women's Studies, Activism, US History, Race, Digital Humanities
  • Courses 121A: African American History to 1877, 121B: African American History from 1877 to the present, 80X: The History of the Modern Civil Rights Movement

Summary of Expertise

African American History

African American History in the American West

Black Women’s History

Research Interests

Black women’s history

Activism and resistance
Black Freedom Movement

Pacific Northwest & U.S. West History

Digital humanities

Public history and memory

Biography, Education and Training

Ph.D, University of Washington, 2018

M.A., Universitiy of Georgia, 2012

B.A., Fisk University, 2010

Honors, Awards and Grants

Washington State Historical Society John McLendon, Jr. Award for best article 

Woodrow Wilson Foundation Career Adjunct Fellowship

University of Washington Distinguished Dissertation Award                                                                          

Selected Publications

Blackpast.org encyclopedic entries (abbreviated list): "E. June Smith," "Dorothy Hollingsworth," "Emmett L. Till," "Freddie Mae Gautier," "Crispus Attucks," "Patricia E. Bath," "Daisy Tibbs Dawson," "Herbert Lee," "Addie Fletcher Booth" (2013-2023)

"Alice Presto" and "Christia V. Adair," Women and Social Movements Digital History Project (2017)

"Transformation of a Community," in Seattle on the Spot: The Photographs of Al Smith, Seattle: Museum of History & Industry (2017)

"Finding Peace Across the Ocean: Daisy Tibbs Dawson and the Rebuilding of Hiroshima," Columbia: The Magazine of the Pacific Northwest (2019)

"Let Us...Take Our Place in Public Affairs:" Black Women's Political Activism in the Pacific Northwest, 1870-1920," Western Historical Quarterly (Fall 2024)