The Pacific Historical Review editorial team stands before a wall of awards. From left, Brenda Frink, associate editor; Lauren Yanase, graduate student fellow; Ava Becking, undergraduate student fellow; and Marc Rodriguez, editor.
Thirty years ago, the Pacific Historical Review made Portland State University its home. Since then, dozens of undergraduate and graduate students have helped shape the nationally recognized journal — gaining hands-on experience in academic publishing as they move each issue from submission to print.
Founded in 1932, the Pacific Historical Review has long been the premier historical journal on the Pacific Coast. When its editorial offices moved from University of California, Los Angeles to PSU, some were skeptical that the university's relatively small History Department could maintain — much less elevate — the journal's standing as a world-class publication. Then-co-editors Carl Abbott and David Johnson set out to prove the naysayers wrong.
Today, the framed awards lining the journal's office walls are a testament to the success of those efforts and the journal's far-reaching influence beyond campus. Many award winners are now acclaimed historians who first published in the PHR early in their careers or at pivotal moments in their work.
"We've published a lot of groundbreaking work by scholars when they were young," said current editor and history professor Marc Rodriguez. "We want to see new scholars and new fields of inquiry develop, and that's what the journal is all about."
Building on their predecessors' student-centered approach, Abbott and Johnson treated the journal as a training ground for doctoral programs and public history careers. Rodriguez and associate editor Brenda Frink have continued that tradition, ensuring student fellows take on substantive editorial and project-management roles that prepare them for careers within and beyond the field of history.
"It's a big priority for us that our fellows have real jobs where they have responsibilities that we are trusting them to do," said Frink, who joined the journal in 2014. "They have project management responsibilities, but they're also doing the real intellectual work of the journal."
Rodriguez, who's been at the helm since 2014, calls the student fellows the journal's "secret sauce." When scholars have questioned why students are editing their articles, he doesn't hesitate to push back.
"I've said to them, 'This process is good for you because if our really smart undergrad and grad students don't get what you're saying clearly in the first couple pages, no one else is — and then people aren't going to use it in classes or cite it,'" Rodriguez said. "They're actually helping authors reframe their arguments and rewrite for clarity and readability. I think that's why we win the prizes."
The Pacific Historical Review's most recent issue, published in February 2026, featured articles on tribal sovereignty, Pacific expansion, and global trade.
Lauren Yanase, a master's student in history and the journal's Caroline P. Stoel Editorial Fellow, is involved in every stage of the publication. When a submission comes in, she takes the first pass, offering Rodriguez her assessment of whether the article would be a good fit or not.
"I never thought I would be having that level of input and insight as a fellow," she said.
She came in with some experience having been editor of Anthós, the Honors College undergraduate journal, but has continued to develop new publishing skills. Spreadsheets and a large whiteboard help her keep track of each issue as it moves through the cycle: peer reviews, developmental edits, copy edits and proofs.
On any given day, Yanase might reach out to authors about agreements and image permissions while also diving into a 30-page article, suggesting ways the author can strengthen their argument. She says participating in the developmental edit process has made her a stronger reader and writer as she works on her own thesis, giving her a clearer sense of how to frame an argument and what a well-structured paper looks like.
"As someone who hopes to continue down the academic route, it's really fascinating to get a window into these historians and their methodology and research process," she said. "Seeing how they tapped into sources or framed discussions about previous scholarship in particular ways is really helpful."
Yanase is joined on staff by Ava Becking, a history major and the journal's Honors College Editorial Fellow. Becking spends most of her time supporting the book reviews. Each issue features between 20 and 25 book reviews — and it's Becking who helps choose the books, finds leading scholars in the relevant field to review them and then has the more challenging task of staying on top of the professors to meet their deadlines. She feels like she's learned about a new historical niche topic every day.
"It's almost an overwhelming amount," said Becking, who's interested in science and medical history, "but being able to see who's publishing, what they're publishing, what you can publish, what new fields people are experimenting with has made me feel a bit more equipped for my own journey into my historical niche."
Yanase and Becking bonded over long hours preparing a special issue set to publish this fall on the inquisitions in the Pacific world — an understudied topic that drew scholars for whom English is a third or even fourth language. And that's a direction Rodriguez and Frink plan to continue.
"We've gone global in some very interesting ways and I'd like to see us build more bridges with scholars in places that aren't the United States or Europe," Rodriguez said. "Making our journal accessible and approachable internationally is something that I've committed myself to. It means that sometimes, we're working with scholars that don't have the infrastructure support that you see here, but they've done the research in those archives that people aren't necessarily aware of."
Rodriguez and Frink take pride that the journal has been a launchpad for emerging scholars as much as it has been for its student fellows.
"It's a chance to see where our students and where the field is going to go in the future," Frink said. "It makes it very exciting and rewarding to come to the office every day."
As the journal marks three decades at PSU, its editors see the anniversary not just as a milestone, but as momentum for the next chapter. A celebration lunch will be held on Thursday, March 12, with guests of honor Abbott, Johnson and associate editor emerita Susan Wladaver-Morgan.