Dr. Alvah hails from Los Angeles, California --Torrance, to be precise (an industrial-suburban city featured in films by Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino).  While growing up, she also lived in Virginia, Okinawa, San Jose (Northern California), and El Toro (Southern California). 

Early in her educational career Dr. Alvah considered focusing her studies on astronomy or mathematics, but history won her heart and mind.  She received bachelor's degrees in history and humanities/women's studies at the University of California, Irvine.  After a year off from school, she entered the graduate program in history at the University of California, Davis, where she earned her master's degree and doctorate in U.S. history, with a minor field in cross-cultural women's history.  She is interested in the interconnections among cultural history, social history, and foreign relations.  Courses she teaches include: the survey of U.S. history since 1877, history of American foreign relations, American military history, the United States in World War II, and history of American families and children. 

Currently Dr. Alvah is working on a book about American military families stationed overseas during the first two decades of the Cold War (forthcoming from New York University Press).  She also has written an essay on military families in Heidelberg 1946-1965, which will appear in a collection titled GIs in Germany: The American Military Presence 1945-2000 (forthcoming from Cambridge University Press).  Other publications include entries for Americans at War: Society, Culture and the Homefront and Dictionary of American History, and book reviews.

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