Heike Alberts, Assistant Professor of Geography, received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Alberts specializes in the geographical areas of population, migration, urban in Latin America and Europe.

Greetings: I was born and raised in divided Berlin, and in my opinion, Berlin is one of the most fascinating cities in the world. I look forward to showing you my city as well as teaching you about the geography of Europe. I was trained as a geographer in both Germany and the US and my research focuses on migration and urban issues in Europe and the Americas. I have a wide variety of interests and I love to explore new places and getting to know new people. I travel as much as I can and really enjoy teaching!

Kimberly Rivers, Associate Professor of History, received her Ph. D. from the University of Toronto. Dr. Rivers' research interests include: late-medieval intellectual history; memory and mnemonics in late-medieval preaching and religious devotion.

Greetings: I have been a faculty member in the History Department since 1995. I enjoy both teaching and researching the history of the Middle Ages, and I look forward to introducing you to the medieval period. We will use Paris as a base to explore the history of medieval Europe from about 1000 to about 1500. We will be visiting a medieval monastery, a very well preserved medieval city, Chartres and Notre Dame cathedrals, as well as the medieval collections of the Musée de Cluny and the Louvre. Paris is a wonderful city, and the Louvre may be my favorite place on earth--I hope you like it, too!

Dr. Monika Hohbein-Deegen, Assistant Professor of German and International Studies, received her Ph.D from the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Hohbein-Deegen's research interests include: contemporary German literature, especially East German literature after the fall of the wall, post World War II German history and culture, issues dealing with the separation and unification of Germany, especially questions of East German identity after unification.

Greetings: Growing up in former East Germany, I attended the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität in Jena, studying English, German, and German as a second language. During that time, I experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of the inner-German borders in 1989. After graduating in Jena, I taught German as a second language for several years at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg and the University of Cincinnati where I received my Ph.D. in German literature. I have been teaching German at UWO since September 2003. I am looking forward to teaching you about the years following World War II from German separation to unification and the present in Berlin, Potsdam, and Leipzig.