At its February 12 board meeting, the Abraham Lincoln Association elected two new directors and a new slate of officers.
Sameer Somal joins the board as CEO of Blue Ocean Global Technology and co-founder of Girl Power Talk. A Georgetown University graduate, he held leadership roles at Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and Scotiabank before building his current practice around digital transformation, risk management, and technology development. He holds the CFA, CFP®, and CAIA designations and serves as a testifying expert in economic damages, intellectual property, and internet defamation. He sits on the boards of Future Business Leaders of America and Girl Power USA. The CFA Institute named him a 2022 Inspirational Leader, and the Women Economic Forum has recognized him as an Iconic Leader.
Cecily N. Zander joins the board as an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Wyoming and a Senior Fellow at Southern Methodist University’s Center for Presidential History. Her first book is The Army Under Fire: Antimilitarism in the Civil War Era, won the 2024 Wiley-Silver Prize for the best first book in Civil War History. Her next book, a history of Abraham Lincoln and the American West, will be published by Liveright. She is also working on a short history of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. In addition to teaching and writing, she edits the History in an Afternoon series at Louisiana State University Press. She has published essays on the Civil War and the American West in numerous edited collections, scholarly journals, and popular magazines.
ALA Directors gather at the 2026 banquet in Springfield, Illinois
Joshua Claybourn was elected president, succeeding Bill Shepherd. He previously served the Association as vice president, contributed to media outreach, and hosted the Lincoln Log podcast, bringing Lincoln scholarship to audiences well beyond the seminar room. He has appeared in cable television documentaries and helped shape how the ALA speaks to the public. His agenda as president starts with the Association itself: strengthening what members receive, building event attendance, and drawing younger people into Lincoln scholarship. That last point matters to him most. A rising generation that knows Lincoln only from monuments and currency needs guides—and organizations like the ALA to open the door.
By profession, Claybourn leads the intellectual property practice group at Jackson Kelly PLLC, handling trademark, copyright, and constitutional matters for clients ranging from major corporations to municipalities, including Spencer County, Lincoln’s own boyhood county. He also serves as an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute. Law sharpens how he reads Lincoln: with attention to argument, structure, and the precision of language that lawyers and historians share. His scholarship centers on the ideas that shaped Lincoln and the worlds he inhabited. He has a forthcoming book, Young Lincoln: An Authoritative History of Abe’s Formative Years, co-authored with Bill Bartelt and expected in 2027. Another book, Lincoln’s Compass: The Declaration of Independence and the American Idea, arrives in fall 2026. It examines how the Declaration anchored Lincoln’s political and moral imagination.
Other officers elected: Mark Pohlad, 1st Vice President; Andrew Lang, 2nd Vice President; James Cornelius, Secretary; Don Graham, Treasurer.