Team Member News: Welcome Chapman "Chappy" Hall

As Mapping Violence in Early Modern Italy continues to grow, a new face has joined our team this summer. Chapman “Chappy” Hall is a history PhD student at George Mason University and a Graduate Research Assistant at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. He earned his B.A. in history in 2024 at the University of Maine and began his studies at GMU in the fall of 2025. He will be working on data entry and cleaning, mapping, and writing for our blog.

As a historian in training, Chappy’s area of expertise is the history of France and its empire during the 18th and early 19th centuries. His most recent research focused on the end of the Seven Years’ War and the 1763 Treaty of Paris. He explored the changing nature of France’s empire as a result of that peace through the agenda of Étienne François the duc de Choiseul, France’s leading minister at the time. Chappy is also interested in digital history and history video games. He began researching history video games during his undergraduate studies at the University of Maine with his senior honors thesis “Playing History: How Video Games Can Change the Way We Understand the Past.” More recently he has been analyzing how the video game series Europa Universalis represents the history of slavery and the Transatlantic slave trade. Chappy is excited to continue studying digital methods and video games as he hopes to incorporate them further into his research in the future. Outside of work and his studies, Chappy enjoys spending time outdoors hiking, camping, and boating. His family has deep roots in Maine where he was born and raised, and he holds great affection for the Maine wilderness and his family’s camp on Sebago Lake. This summer he is excited to finally hike Mt. Katahdin with his stepdad.

Chappy is also a musician and has played the trombone for over a decade. He has played in many different ensembles, bands, and chamber groups over the years, and is currently a member of George Mason University’s Wind Symphony and Jazz Ensemble. His favorite genre of music to play and listen to is jazz, but he also enjoys rock, folk, and classical. Some of his favorite artists and bands include Sammy Rae and The Friends, Couch, and Omar Thomas. He also loves soccer, which he used to both play and referee. He is an ardent fan of Manchester United Football Club and his local team the Portland Hearts of Pine. He was a regular fixture in Hearts’ ultra fan section, The Zoo, during their inaugural season. While he does not have any plans to attend a World Cup game in person this summer, Chappy is excited at the prospect of it inspiring a new generation of soccer lovers. He is enjoying digging his teeth into our many datasets on Italian violence and get hands on experience working on a large digital history project.