History alum Sarah McLennan uses digital tools to expand who can access history.
History, Sarah McLennan often tells her students, is more than memorizing names and dates. It is about asking meaningful questions, examining evidence, and piecing together stories that help us understand how people lived, thought, and made decisions in the past.
As an assistant professor of history at Virginia State University, McLennan has built a career around the idea that teaching, research, and technology make history more accessible to more people.
“Most of my research has been about the ways that history can be experienced and shared with the public,” she said. “Right now, that means thinking intentionally about how people encounter historical sources and how we can remove barriers to accessing them.”
Finding history beyond the classroom
McLennan’s path toward public-facing historical work began at Michigan State University, where she double majored in history and English. She arrived on campus with a general love of the humanities, but no fixed plan for what might come next. What she found instead were opportunities that showed her how flexible and far-reaching a history degree could be.
While at MSU, McLennan volunteered in the collections department at the MSU Museum and took a course on folklore and oral history taught by then–museum director Kurt Dewhurst. She learned how historians gather stories, preserve materials, and think critically about how the public encounters the past. She also worked as a historical interpreter at Mackinac State Historic Parks and participated in a historic site fellowship in Deerfield, Massachusetts — experiences that introduced her to history as a public-facing practice, not just an academic one.
“Coming into Michigan State, there were so many things that weren’t even on my radar,” McLennan said. “Museum work, oral history, creating databases… those experiences really expanded what I thought history could be and who it could be for.”
Mentorship further shaped her development. Dr. David Bailey, who taught intellectual history courses and later became her advisor, left a lasting influence on how she understands the discipline. “He had this ability to pull together all these different ideas into telling a story,” she said. “History is about storytelling — with evidence — and that’s something I try to bring into my own classroom.” Study abroad coursework in London, where she learned British history by visiting historic sites firsthand, reinforced the idea that history comes alive when people can experience it directly.
From public history to collaborative research
After graduating from MSU, McLennan pursued graduate studies at the College of William & Mary, initially envisioning a future in museum or public history. There, she found herself increasingly drawn to teaching, serving as a teaching assistant and leading a public history field course that brought students to historic sites as part of their coursework. At the same time, she continued exploring community-engaged research, including oral history projects and institutional partnerships.
One of the most notable was her work with NASA’s Langley Research Center, where she interviewed women who worked as mathematicians and computer programmers from the 1950s through the 1970s. The project contributed to a growing digital archive documenting women’s roles in early computing — stories that also connected to the research Margot Lee Shetterly did that inspired the book and film Hidden Figures. “It was a really powerful example of how local stories can have national significance,” McLennan said. “Those interviews showed how important it is to preserve and share voices that might otherwise be overlooked.”
Digitizing the past to reach more people
Today, McLennan’s research increasingly blends history with digital technology. She is currently part of a collaborative grant project digitizing and transcribing 17th‑century Virginia records that previously existed only on microfilm. The project will produce an online database and website that allows users to search records, view original documents, and explore connections through data visualization. The work brings together historians, digital archivists, librarians, computer scientists, and web designers, including collaborators from Michigan State University’s MATRIX and Virginia Tech.
“These are really collaborative projects,” McLennan said. “Having students, historians, and technologists all working together has been incredibly positive. We’ve all learned a lot from each other, and the project is better because of those different perspectives. We’re constantly asking how people might want to use this material and using that feedback to shape the project.” The goal, she added, is to “make historical sources accessible so people can actually do research on their own and see the documents themselves.”
“Unless you were sitting at the State Library going through microfilm, nobody was really seeing this information,” she said. “Students aren’t just studying it, they’re helping make it available so someone else can go online, search, and learn from it too.”
Undergraduate researchers have helped transcribe documents, enter metadata, present at conferences, and use the database in their coursework. For many, it is their first encounter with original historical materials. “They’ll say, ‘I never thought technology could be part of history,’” McLennan said. “Then they’re looking at something written in the 1600s and realizing they’re one of the first people to work with it in this way.”
The project also reflects McLennan’s approach to teaching in an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence. While collaborators are experimenting with training AI models to help read 17th-century English and search transcripts, she emphasizes that access to real, tangible sources remains essential. “Projects like these put concrete evidence out front,” she said. “They show that history is built from real documents, real people, and careful interpretation.”
Looking back, McLennan credits her MSU experience with opening her eyes to the many paths a history major can take. That lesson now informs the advice she gives her own students. “Look broadly,” she said. “There are a lot of things you can do with a history degree, and many of them aren’t obvious at first. Internships, research projects, and experiences beyond the classroom are what helped me figure that out.”
