Education

B.S. Engineering, Swarthmore College
B.A. History, Swarthmore College
Ph.D. History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, Johns Hopkins University

Bio

Professor Marsh combines her interests in engineering, history, and museum objects to tell stories of technology through historical artifacts. As a public historian, her main research interests revolve around how the general public comes to understand complex engineering ideas, especially outside the classroom—through museums, documentaries, TV shows, and so on. Her work focuses on gender representation in museums and women in science and technology.

During the 2024-25 academic year, Dr. Marsh was the NEH Fellow in residence at the Linda Hall Library for Science, Engineering, and Technology in Kansas City, MO. Her research involved combing through the former library of the United Engineering Society and the publications of the IEEE (Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers), and its predecessor organizations, the IRE (Institute of Radio Engineers) and AIEE (American Institute of Electrical Engineers), to create a database of women who contributed to these professional societies. In advance of the upcoming 150th anniversary of the IEEE, she plans to create a digital visualization and an accompanying book to shine a light on the women who have always been there, yet who are rarely recognized. 

Professor Marsh is the Co-Director of the Ann Johnson Institute for Science, Technology & Society, a center on campus promoting interdisciplinary collaboration among humanists, scientists, engineers, and medical professionals. Before coming to USC, she was Curator and Winton M. Blount Research Chair at the Smithsonian Institution National Postal Museum. 

Specialization

Public History (gender representation in museums, dissemination of research in popular media), History of Technology (women in engineering)

Activities

Dr. Marsh writes the “Past Forward” column for  IEEE Spectrum. Each month she chooses a museum object in the history of computer and electrical engineering and spins out an engaging tale. Her subjects have included Japanese housewife Fumiko Minami’s contributions to the invention of the automatic rice cooker, artist Lisa Krohn’s futuristic Cyberdesk, and  the history of the hot comb. She also writes and narrates a YouTube series for Spectrum . The first episode is how E. O. Lawrence – Oppenheimer’s BFF (and then not) – took time off after winning the Nobel Prize and working on the Manhattan Project to dabble in inventing color TV.

As the consultant for the hit YouTube series, Crash Course: History of Science, her work has reached more than 22 million viewers. She organized the series around her HIST 108 syllabus and used the videos in her online version of the course. In doing so, she studied content retention from videos versus the traditional textbook. She published the results with her teaching assistant, Bethany Johnson, and has incorporated the lessons learned into her subsequent online teaching.