Ryan (B.A. History, Oregon State University and M.A. History Ohio State Univeristy ) is a doctoral student in Modern European History and began his graduate work at Ohio State in 2007. His research interests include modern European cultural and intellectual history with particular interests in philosophy, sexuality, medicine, conceptions of time, and the phenomenology of death and religion. His M.A. thesis was titled "That the dead will cause no harm to the living:" The Cremation of Corpses, Religion, and Public Hygiene in Victorian England, and addresses the debate and regulation of cremation as public policy in England from 1874-1902.