Ms. Tracey E. Watts is currently a graduate student attending the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is in the second year of the Ph.D. program in the History Department, studying ancient history (Greek and Roman history: rural socio-economic history specifically pertaining to agricultural slavery and labor history of the late republic and early imperial periods in ancient Rome); her other primary fields include World History and Classics. Her formal education also includes a B.S. in Agricultural Business Management (1997); an MBA with an emphasis in International Business and Marketing (2000) and an M.A. in History (2006) from the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

A highlight of Ms. Watts’s MBA program was the opportunity to collaborate with Cal Poly faculty and the publication of a number of papers and articles resulting from original research for her Master’s project, entitled College Students as Consumers: An International Lifestyle Study (2000). The papers were subsequently presented at a number of academic conferences, including the Direct Marketing Educator’s Association Conference, held October 15 - October 18, 2000 in New Orleans, Louisiana; the Marketing Educator’s Association Conference, held April 18 - April 22, 2001 in Waikaloa, Hawaii; the International Business Association Conference, held May 7 - May 10, 2003 in New York, NY; and the Annual Conference of the World Association for Case Research and Methodology Application, held June 30 - July 2, 2002 in Mannheim, Germany. Ms. Watts has also had the opportunity to present papers at a number of other conferences and meetings. She presented a paper entitled “Slavery and Agriculture in Ancient Rome” at the University of California Multi-Campus Research Unit on World History Biannual Meeting, at which the theme was Bondage, Subjugation and the New Slavery in Comparative World Perspective (held at the University of California, Davis, May 28-30, 2004); another draft of the paper was presented at the Phi Alpha Theta Regional Meeting, held at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, Spring, 2005. She presented a paper entitled “’Like Only Unto Themselves’: Intermarriage, Multiculturalism and the Status of Women in the Anatolian Borderlands” at the Ancient Borderlands Research Interdisciplinary Focus Group at UC Santa Barbara on June 4, 2007.

Ms. Watts has recently had the opportunity to gain practical teaching experience. She was employed as a reader/grader for Prof. John Lee’s Bronze Age Greece course for Fall Quarter, 2006, and as a teaching assistant for Prof. Greg Graves’s course, Introduction to the Social and Cultural Environment during Spring Quarter, 2007. During Summer Quarter, 2007 she has been serving as a research assistant for Prof. Alice O’Connor doing course development for a new offering in the fall entitled History of the Present, and also as a part-time TA for the Freshman Summer Start Program for Prof. Ralph Gallucci. She will be employed as a TA during Fall Quarter, 2007 for a Western Civilization course in the History department.

In terms of work experience, Ms. Watts has been employed in a variety of industries. During her undergraduate program, she worked part-time as a kennel attendant and groomer’s assistant in Yorba Linda, CA. During her MBA program, she was employed as a temp worker with a number of agencies, including Abigail Abbott and Olympic Staffing. She was then employed at a manufacturing company in Chino where she served as a purchasing assistant and marketing coordinator. While attending college full-time for her M.A. degree, she was employed as a research analyst at a market research firm, where her duties were numerous and varied! These typically pertained to data analysis and report writing, but also website design and database management.

Although graduate school has left her little time for activities unrelated to her degree, she loves to travel and has visited more than 20 countries around the world. She served as a People to People Student Ambassador to Northern Europe and Russia in 1993 and has traveled throughout Europe, Southeast Asia and the US. She is a member of the Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society and the Gamma Sigma Delta Agricultural Honor Society, and currently serves as Fund Raising Coordinator for the Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group Graduate Student Conference Committee (2006/2007). She also enjoys reading, music, photography, website design and ceramics and collects boxes and cultural items from around the world!