Carr, a specialist on Byzantine art, has taught at SMU since 1972 and was recently the chair of the Meadows Division of Art History. Her classroom skills have earned her SMU's Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Methodist Church Award for Outstanding Teacher and Scholar. Her university service includes working with many university taskforces and committees, including membership and executive positions within the SMU Faculty Senate. For her research, she has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Meadows Foundation, the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, the National Humanities Center Lilly Endowment, the American Council of Learned Societies and the American Association of University Women. Carr received her Master of Art degree and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.
Countryman is an expert on early British American history and American social history.
He is currently researching the development of American society in Mississippi from 1790 to 1860. He has taught at SMU since 1991 and before that held full-time faculty positions at the University of Warwick in England and the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He has been a visiting professor and lecturer at the University of Cambridge, Yale University, Colorado College, Manhattan College and New York University. A Collision of Histories . In addition, he has co-authored or edited six other books and written many journal articles, anthology essays and editions for encyclopedias and reference books.