Michael Hamm

Michael F. Hamm, Emeritus Professor History at Centre, has held the Ewing T. Boles Professorship since 1994. He joined the Centre faculty in 1970 and retired in 2014, although he still teaches an occasional class. He served as Faculty President from 1998 until 2001 and chaired the Social Studies Division from 1991 until 1995. He is also the recipient of the Kirk Award for Excellence in Teaching.

A scholarly expert on Russia and Eastern Europe, Hamm’s "Kiev: A Portrait, 1800-1917 (Princeton University Press, 1993, paperback 1995)" won the Antonovych Prize for the best book published on Ukraine in 1995. Hamm also edited and co-authored "The City in Late Imperial Russia (Indiana University Press, 1986)", and "The City in Russian History (University Press of Kentucky, 1976)." He published a number of articles, mostly on Kiev and Kharkiv and Russia’s 1905 Revolution, and guest edited an issue of "Nationalities Papers" on Moldova in 1998.

Professor Hamm received several grants for research abroad, including an American Philosophical Society grant. He spent the 1976-77 academic year as an IREX research scholar in the Soviet Union and the spring semester 1986 as a Fulbright researcher in Moscow. In 1995 he taught about American values and institutions at Almaty State University in Kazakstan. One of the first Centre professors to offer off-campus programs, he led Centre student groups to the Soviet Union and various Eastern European countries on five occasions.

An ardent conservationist, Hamm has traveled widely in Latin America and Africa observing birds and wildlife. He served on the Board of Trustees of the Kentucky Chapter of The Nature Conservancy from 2006 until 2016, chairing that Board for three years. He now continues as an Emeritus member of that Board. Hamm has also chaired the Boards of Directors of the Central Kentucky Wildlife Refuge and the Danville-Boyle County Humane Society. Currently, he is President of the La Cruz Habitat Protection Project (forestsformonarchs.org) which does the reforestation and forest management for the migratory Monarch butterfly’s winter roost biosphere in Michoacan, Mexico.

He holds a B. A. from Macalester College and M.A. and Ph. D degrees from Indiana University.