Natalie D. McDonald is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of History. Born and raised in Los Angeles, her research focuses on American empire in twentieth-century California and the West. Natalie's master’s thesis wove together her interests in imperial expansion and contraction, settler colonialism and migration, identity and memory by analyzing the conservation of David Alfaro Siqueiros’ 1932 mural, América Tropical, in Downtown Los Angeles. What vision of the city’s history and future was being promoted—and by whom—with the mural’s conservation in the final decades of the twentieth century? Natalie received her B.A. in History summa cum laude from Pomona College and her M.A. in History from California State University, Northridge, where she was the 2024 recipient of the Nathan O. Freedman Memorial Award for Outstanding Graduate Student.