Liam James Kingsley (M.A., 2019; Ph.D., 2025) earned degrees in African History at Indiana University, completing a Ph.D. with minors in Global History and African Studies with his dissertation titled Of Primary Concern: Health Administration, HIV/AIDS, and Namibian Independence. He is currently Assistant Professor of History in the Global South at Creighton University, where he teaches courses in African history, global history, and the history of medicine while continuing his research on medicine, disease, and state-building in southern Africa. Liam traces his interest in southern African history to a high school AP World History teacher whose enthusiasm for the field inspired him to pursue it professionally. Following his graduation in 2025, Liam joined the Mellon Foundation–funded Federal Employees and Contractors Oral History Project at the Organization of American Historians, where he served as both an oral historian and project administrator. Drawing on skills developed through his dissertation research, he conducted more than fifty long-form oral history interviews with current and former federal employees and contractors before transitioning to his faculty position in 2026.

Liam's scholarship explores questions of health, governance, and liberation in southern Africa. His article, “Aid and Extraversion: Medical Governance in SWAPO Exile Camps, 1974–1989,” appeared in the Journal of Southern African Studies in 2025, and his research has been supported by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship in Namibia and South Africa. In 2026, he will serve as subtheme chair for “Social Movements, Activism, and Resistance” at the African Studies Association Annual Meeting.

Reflecting on his time at IU, Liam credits faculty including Pedro Machado, Peter Guardino, Marissa Moorman, Michelle Moyd, Tavy Aherne, John Hanson, and Danny James with shaping his development as both a scholar and educator. The program's combination of broad historical training, methodological rigor, and extensive teaching opportunities helped prepare him for a career that bridges research, teaching, and oral history.

Liam looks back fondly on his years in Bloomington, which he calls “one of the great American towns,” and remains grateful for the many people that helped make it feel like home, including "T.V." Mike and "my man at Rush Hour Station." His advice to current students is to "Find what you’re passionate about and lose your mind over it. Second, though, don’t neglect yourself nor the connections you might build with others along the way. History is the product of community, and so are you! Ask yourself what your history can do, and for whom. A career, discipline, and life lived in service to and among others is far richer. Last, don’t let the bastards get you down."