Andrew Burke is a federal public servant and an early career historian who completed a Master of Arts in History at the University of Ottawa in 2023. The constellation of interests which inspired my thesis "In the Middle of Ontario's Normal Education: The Staff of State Sponsored Social Activism, 1847-1860" encompasses optimism about historical research in the Digital Age, curiosity about the role of spatial thinking in our experiences of society and self, and fascination with the intermediary and the connective – with histories of the middle. I am abidingly captivated by the relationships between people, institutions, and the physical world. These interests have most recently led me to ask questions about the structure of historical communities, the roles played by interpersonal and institutional networks in defining that structure, and the mechanisms of power that might exist within the seemingly mundane.