Payne is an Associate Professor of History. Her research and teaching are in public history, with a specialty in cultural resource management and historic preservation.

She has served as the Principal Investigator on dozens of externally funded projects for federal and state agencies, local governments and non-profit organizations including numerous administrative histories for the National Park Service and community-engaged projects, such as the award-winning “Confinement in the Land of Enchantment” project.

Payne is an environmental historian who is committed to using environmental history to solve real world problems much the same way she does in public history. She harnesses this commitment as a faculty council member for the Public and Environmental History Center at CSU, which uses the past to help partners resolve present challenges.

She is currently revising a book project, “Screwing with Nature: An Environmental History of Birth Control in the United States,” which explores the production, consumption and disposal histories of contraceptives in the twentieth century.