Born and raised in Barboursville, West Virginia, Molly studied as an undergraduate at Wittenberg University in Springfield, OH, where she majored in History and in German. She then completed her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in German and European History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Molly's teaching interests include nineteenth- and twentieth-century German and Russian history, European women's and gender history, methods and historiography, and world history. She also teaches a course on the modern Olympic Games.
Molly’s book Training Socialist Citizens: Sports and the State in East Germany (Brill Academic Publishers, 2008) explores the political, social, and cultural role of sports in communist East Germany. Her current research examines athletic mega-events, urban planning, and social protest in the reunification and post-reunification eras in Germany. She has a forthcoming book, co-edited with Heather L. Dichter, entitled Berlin Sports: Spectacle, Recreation, and Media in Germany's Metropolis (University of Arkansas Press, 2024).
When not teaching and researching, Molly enjoys reading, working puzzles, traveling, maintaining her Duolingo streak (currently working on Russian and Latin), and hanging out with her husband Dave, her two children, and her dog.
