Dr. John Corbally has taught at DVC for 12 years and loves working with students of all backgrounds and abilities. A specialist in world history, he has also taught European, Asian, Latin American and US history at eight California institutions, including five years teaching humanities and history at Stanford prior to joining DVC.
Prof. Corbally’s passion is helping less privileged students reach college and flourish in life through learning, a path he took himself in his late twenties, taking classes at CCSF while working full time. Raised in a disadvantaged Irish immigrant community in England by parents who left school at 11, he himself finished school at 15 with few qualifications. He moved to the US alone at 18 and worked nine years without papers, laboring uninsured on construction sites for five of those. In his thirties, he quit a well-paid corporate career to teach history. He earned his BA, MA and PhD in 9 years. Professor Corbally’s credo is "a life lived without grasping the complexity of history is a life of confusion, frustration and misinformation."
Professor Corbally has published two world history textbooks covering 1490–1750 and 1914–present. He recently published a world history text based on DVC students' family histories over the past century. Co-chair of the History Department since 2020, he has led pedagogy workshops for the STEM Teaching Excellence Faculty Program (2023–25), served on multiple faculty hiring committees, served on the Scheduling Committee since 2022, and previously served on the Curriculum and Technology committees. He advised the History Club (2016–24), mentored African American students as an Umoja advisor (2015–17) and has led DVC study abroad programs in Florence (2024) and London (2026).
Professor Corbally has two adult children, with whom he spends any spare time he has when not swimming, kickboxing or doing yoga wrong.
