Her manuscript in-progress, Freedom’s Little Lights: Children and Teenagers in the U.S. and Abroad during the Civil Rights Era, examines the nexus of teenage youth, civil rights, and Cold War politics during the 1950s and 1960s. With Paul Renfro and Sara Fieldston, Eckelmann Berghel is the coeditor of Growing Up America: Youth and Politics since 1945, an edited anthology under contract with the University of Georgia Press. Her recent work on youth and citizenship and the black freedom struggle appeared in the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth. In 2014, Eckelmann Berghel completed her Ph.D. in History and American Studies at Indiana University Bloomington.