Melissa Ziobro, curator for the Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music and director of public history at Monmouth University, was interviewed on the SOFREP Radio podcast, for the episode, “Frontline Stories & Untold Histories: Melissa Ziobro Director of Public History Monmouth University.” SOFREP (Special Operations Forces Report) was inspired by the military’s use of acronyms in formal communication traffic.
Ziobro began her career as a civilian historian, archivist and curator for the U.S. Army in 2004 before returning to her alma mater, Monmouth University, to teach full time. She has taught more than a dozen courses, including Intro to Public History; Oral History; Museums and Archives Management Basics; New Jersey History; and the Vietnam War.
In August 2023, she became curator of the university’s Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music, after years of faculty collaboration with the center. In 2019, she co-curated its first traveling exhibit, “Springsteen: His Hometown,” with the Monmouth County Historical Association. Her recent publications include “Fort Monmouth: The U.S. Army’s House of Magic” (2024) and “The Battlin’ Bastards of Bravo: Bravo Company, 1/506th, 101st Airborne, in Vietnam and Beyond” (2025).