Our Graduates

Harvard’s PhDs enter tenure-track jobs at almost three times the national average for programs in American Studies. Our recent graduates teach at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor, Harvard School of Law, the University of California-Irvine, Tufts University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia, the University of Connecticut, Vassar College, Rutgers University, Dartmouth College, Boston College, Bard, CUNY Queens College, and elsewhere.

Our students regularly win top fellowships and postdocs including from the Fulbright Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Smithsonian, and many others. Beyond the academy, our graduates become museum curators, editors, directors of grants, ministers, and more.

Our graduates publish books and other works that win top honors, including Pulitzer Prizes, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Across the United States and around the world, Harvard American Studies graduates are shaping conversations about the American past and the global future, the relationship between the stories we tell and the world we co-create, who we are and who we can become.

Placements

2023
  • Chloe Chapin
    Teaching in Harvard Pre-College Program
    Bok Center, Assistant Director of Course Development
  • Mary McNeil
    Tufts University, Assistant Professor, Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora
  • Jonathan Karp
    Vanderbilt University, Postdoctoral
  • Karintha Lowe
    Sarah Lawrence College and the Hudson River Musuem, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow
  • Keish Kim
    Rutgers University, Post-doctoral Fellow, Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice
  • Balraj Gill
    Harvard University, Lecturer in the History and Literature
    Washington University in Saint Louis, Postdoctoral fellowship
2022
  • Laura Nelson
    Harvard University, Lecturer History & Literature
    University of Southern California, Postdoctoral Fellowship
  • Christofer Rodelo
    University of California, Irvine, Assistant Professorship of Chicano/Latino Studies
  • Keidrick Roy
    Harvard Society of Fellos, Postdoctoral
    Dartmouth College, Assistant Professor of Government (Political Theory), which will begin in Fall 2025.
2021
  • Adam Biggs
    University of South Carolina, Lancaster, Instructor on African American Studies and History
  • Laura Nelson
    University of Southern California, Postdoctoral
  • Catie Peters
    Yale University, Postdoctoral
  • Allison Puglisi
    Brown University, Postdoctoral fellow
2019
  • Amy Fish Kilichand
    Boston University, Fellow
  • Whitney Robles
    Dartmouth Society of Fellows, Junior fellow and lecturer
2016

  • Brian Goodman
    University of Chicago, Inst. In Human Rights
  • Scott Poulson-Bryant
    Fordham, Inst. In Communicaitons & Media
2015
  • Rebecca Scofield
    University of Idaho
  • Holger Droessler
    Bard College, Visiting Asst. Prof of History Droessler
  • Aaron Hatley
    Education consultant
  • Anna Lvovsky
    Columbia Law School Academic Fellows Program
2014
  • Peter L’Official
    Bard College, Asst. Prof of Literature
  • Katherine Stevens
    Oglethorpe University, AAT. Prof of History
2013
  • Eve Mayer
    Assistant Editor at Cambridge University Press
  • Katharine Gerbner
    Assistant Professor of History; University of Wisconsin at Madison
  • Jack Hamilton
    Colorado/Boulder Postdoctoral
  • Eli Cook
    Rutgers Postdoctoral
  • Stephen Vider
    Yale Postdoctoral
2012
  • Erin Dwyer
    Tulane University, Lecturer on History
  • Judy Kertesz
    North Carolina State University, Assistant Professor of History
  • Brian Mccammack
    Du Bois Institute for African and African American Studies, Fellow
    Tufts University, Lecturer on History
  • Caitlin Rosenthal
    Harvard Business School, Postdoctoral
  • Tom Wickman
    Trinity College, Hartford, Assistant Professor of History
2011
  • Brian Hochman
    Georgetown University, Assistant Professor
  • Augustine Sedgewick
    University of South Florida, Postdoctoral
    University of Toronto, Jackman Humanities Institute, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral fellowship
  • Jamie Jones
    University of Michigan, Lecturer
2010
  • George Blaustein
    University of Amsterdam, Assistant Professor of American Studies
  • Sarah Gebhardt
    Journalist in DC
  • Eliza Barstow
    Wofford College, Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion
  • Sarah Carter
    Curator of the Chipstone Foundation, Milwaukee Wisconsin
  • Hillary Kaell
    Concordia University, Assistant Professor
  • Noam Maggor
    Vanderbilt University, 3-year Sr. Lecturer
2009
  • Lauren Brandt
    Harvard University, Lecturer of History and Literature
  • Michael (Miguel) DeBaca
    Lake Forest College, Assistant Professor of Art History
  • Zoe Trodd
    Columbia University, joint appointment in English and African American Studies
  • Katherine Rieder
    Townsen State University, adjunct