SPOHP Staff
JAMIN WELLS, Director
Jamin Wells is an Associate Professor and Director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program. A graduate of the Hagley Program in the History of Capitalism, Technology, and Culture at the University of Delaware, he has led grant-funded digital history initiatives and community-engaged public history projects, including an oral history project that led to the publication of A Punkhouse in the Deep South: The Oral History of 309 (UPF, 2021).
Wells’s first book, Shipwrecked: Coastal Disasters and the Making of the American Beach (UNC Press, 2020), won the John Lyman Book Award in U.S. Maritime History. It examines the radical transformation of the American coast during the nineteenth century, arguing that coastal shipwrecks played a pivotal role in changing how Americans viewed, used, and inhabited the shoreline. Committed to collaborative interdisciplinary research, he has co-authored peer-reviewed studies that bring novel historical perspectives and methods to cemetery studies, policing research, and cumulative impact assessments. He was the recipient of several teaching, research, and service awards.
Wells’s current book project explores the intersection of memory, history, and power in Pensacola, Florida, over the last two centuries. It tells the surprising story — and far-ranging impacts — of the two-century fight over the past in “America’s First Settlement.” He is also co-editor of the award-winning public history project, Righting the Past, which is under review for publication as an edited volume. He currently chairs the Florida State Historical Marker Council.
At UF, Dr. Wells offers courses in oral and public history.
Anna Hamilton, Assistant Director
Anna Hamilton is a PhD candidate in American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her work leverages oral history to better understand place-making and migration associated with the climate crisis in the American South. She joined SPOHP as assistant director in 2023. Anna collaborates with the director and SPOHP staff in this role to support and manage the program’s mission, programmatic and fieldwork projects, and day-to-day activities.
Anna holds a BA in Humanities from New College of Florida, a master’s in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi, and was a Fulbright scholar to the Republic of Mauritius. Her oral history-based master’s thesis examined the Datil pepper of St. Augustine and its potent cultural mythology connected to the region’s Minorcan population and heritage tourism; this project won the University of Mississippi’s Ann Abadie Award for Documentary Media.
Anna is an avid oral historian, having worked for more than a decade developing, consulting on, and contributing to a wide range of projects, including for New College of Florida and Sarasota County; the Southern Foodways Alliance; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; the Florida Folklife Program; and the Southern Oral History Program. She is also project director of Matanzas Voices, an ongoing oral history initiative documenting life, work, and change along northeast Florida’s Matanzas River.
She is an editor and co-founder of The Marjorie, an award-winning reporting nonprofit covering environmental and social justice issues in Florida.
Geoffrey Fletcher, Administrative Specialist
Geoffrey Fletcher is the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program’s Administrative Specialist. He is responsible for managing fiscal transactions, handling office administration, and facilitating program operations. He earned a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Florida in 2015. His undergraduate work focused on the political structure, theory, and history of the European Union.
Before joining the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, Geoffrey worked in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. Serving as Academic Assistant, he facilitated the academic and programmatic functions of LLC’s varied programs.
As a UF staff member, Geoffrey is committed to facilitating meaningful student experiences, effective program administration, and persistent contribution towards the University’s mission: to enable our students to lead and influence the next generation and beyond for economic, cultural, and societal benefit.
Ms. Deborah Hendrix, Digital Humanities Production Coordinator
Ms. Deborah Hendrix, a native of St. Simons Island, Georgia, completed early studies in marine biology at Brunswick Jr. College, Brunswick, Georgia. While figuring out next steps, worked in clinical medical hospital laboratories. The latter part of that 20-year plan included completing a graphic design degree from Santa Fe Community College in 2000. Two years later in 2002 completed an associate of arts degree from SFCC which led to University of Florida admission in 2002 for a bachelor’s degree in history completed in 2006. Worked concurrently with the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program starting in 2000, and have been with the program ever since, becoming full time in 2014 as the technology coordinator. Today our major ongoing tasks are quality interview recording for the future, archive management, and assisting students, faculty, and the wider community in all things oral history.
Ms. Hendrix was awarded the University of Florida Superior Staff Accomplishment Award in 2016. She is widely acknowledged as one of the most outstanding educators in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; she has instructed hundreds of graduate and undergraduate students as well as faculty in digital humanities production and editing techniques during this review period. Deborah is by far the single most often consulted person in the College Liberal Arts and Sciences on editing, production, and preservation of digital data and story telling. Deborah provides expert hands-on-training for numerous UF undergraduate seminars working on final class documentary projects. Units across the campus also frequently request that Deborah film and record high-profile and world-historical guest speakers on campus at UF. Deborah is SPOHP’s expert on digital processing and archival methods and our main connection to digital archivists at Smathers Libraries. In this capacity, Deborah is responsible for managing SPOHP’s 7,500+ collection of oral history interviews and making these ultimately accessible to students, scholars and members of the general public. Deborah does a superb job of answering questions from scholars from across the world who have queries about UF’s Oral History holdings. Deborah’s expertise in digital humanities is sought out by organizations across the country and she has served on several national Oral History Association committees.
Ronan Hart, Network to Freedom Underground Railroad Oral History Project Coordinator
Ronan Hart is the project coordinator for the Underground Railroad Oral History Project, a partnership with the National Park Service’s Network to Freedom program. He plans, conducts, and transcribes interviews with descendants of Underground Railroad freedom seekers, conductors, and stationmasters, with the aim of educating and inspiring the general public about this dramatic chapter in American history. Ronan is a Double Gator, having received his BA in history in 2023 and his MA in history in 2024, both from UF. His research has focused on the British empire, Ireland in the wider Atlantic World, the international abolitionist movement, and the political dimensions of Romanticism. He began as a volunteer with SPOHP on the 2021 Mississippi Freedom Project, before becoming a part-time transcriber and researcher. He has conducted interviews for SPOHP projects including the Mississippi Freedom Project, the Veterans History Project, Challenging Racism @ UF, and the Florida Water Management project, but now focuses exclusively on the Underground Railroad Oral History Project.
Ozioma Ikeanyi, Ph.D. student in the History Department
Ozioma Ikeanyi is a first-year PhD student in History at the University of Florida, working under the supervision of Dr. Philip Janzen. Her research centers on African migration and colonial and early postcolonial histories, with a focus on migrant labor and its contributions to the independence movements in West African states. Ozioma earned a BA in History and International Studies from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, where she was recognized as the Most Outstanding Student of the Class of 2020 by the National Association of History and International Studies Students (NAHISS), Unizik chapter. She recently joined the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP) as a research assistant, where she supports the program’s mission through fieldwork, public engagement, and the digital transcription of oral histories for broader access.
Yonatan Ravid, Ph.D. student in the History Department
Yonatan Ravid is a first year Ph.D. student in the History Department at UF, where he works with Dr. Raanan Rein. He earned his B.A. in History and Middle East Studies from Tel Aviv University in 2025. His research focuses on the history of basketball in Israel and Palestine and the formation of a mostly African American diaspora of professional basketball players outside of the United States. At SPOHP, Yonatan works on transcribing interviews, organizing the program’s vast collection and synthesizing oral histories into historical publications.