Sarah Payne

Associate Professor Sarah Payne joined the faculty at CSU in fall 2012 when she was hired as one of the department’s three public historians.

Prior to her time at CSU, she worked in a wide range of public history positions, including at a consulting firm specializing in historic preservation and cultural resource management, as the managing editor of the New Mexico Historical Review, and as a consultant for museum and outreach projects.

In addition to teaching and continuing to practice public history, her research is in the field of environmental history. Her current manuscript project, Screwing with Nature: An Environmental History of Birth Control in the United States, explores the production, consumption and disposal histories of contraceptives from the late 19th century to 2010.

In addition to teaching in the history department, she serves as a Faculty Council member of CSU’s Public Lands History Center. At the PLHC she and her colleagues work with students on a wide range of projects that further knowledge of the history of America’s public lands using their expertise in environmental history, historic preservation, Native American history, social history, museum studies and cultural resource management.