JOINED THE DEPARTMENT

2022

BIO

Andrew Varsanyi is a Doctoral Candidate. His research explores the political culture of the American West from the Civil War through World War I. His dissertation, Authorized Agent: Alonzo Wardall and the Settler-Colonial Promise in the Gilded Age, 1865–1918, traces the life and networks of an itinerant agrarian organizer to reveal how settler ideologies, economic precarity, and reform politics coalesced across the Great Plains.

Andrew’s work bridges historical scholarship with digital methodologies. He is actively engaged in the digital humanities community, developing tools for textual and network analysis, and contributing to collaborative digital history projects like Petitioning for Freedom: Habeas Corpus in the American West. He has presented digital work on keyword and platform analysis in Populist politics at the Western History Association, the American Historical Association, and regional conferences.

Before returning to academia, Andrew spent over a decade leading digital transformation initiatives in the software industry, bringing a rare combination of technical fluency and historical insight to his scholarship. He holds an M.A. in History from the University of Calgary and has published in venues such as the Middle West Review and Pacific Historical Review.