Barbara Krauthamer
Dean Barbara Krauthamer is a distinguished historian specializing in 19th-century American history, a dedicated mentor, and an innovative academic leader. She assumed the role of dean at Emory College of Arts and Sciences in July 2023.
Before joining Emory, Dean Krauthamer served as dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of Massachusetts Amherst from 2020 to 2023. Before that, she was the dean of the Graduate School from 2017 to 2020 and held the position of senior vice provost for interdisciplinary programs and innovation from 2019 to 2020. During her tenure at UMass Amherst, she launched mentoring programs for junior faculty, identified opportunities for staff professional development, and reinvigorated programming to improve academic outcomes for first-generation students. In 2022, she was appointed to the Massachusetts Cultural Council by Governor Charlie Baker, where she contributed to policy and programs supporting the cultural sector in the state.
Dean Krauthamer is widely recognized as a leading historian of African American slavery and emancipation in the United States. Her published work includes Black Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, and Citizenship in the Native American South. She co-authored Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery, which received multiple honors, including the 2013 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Non-fiction. She also co-edited Major Problems in African American History, one of the leading textbooks in the field.
Her research has been featured in prominent media outlets such as The New York Times, CBS Evening News, National Public Radio, and CNN. She appeared in the award-winning documentary Through A Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People.
A dedicated teacher and mentor, Dean Krauthamer received the Lorraine A. Williams Leadership Award from the Association of Black Women Historians. She has served in leadership roles in several professional organizations, including as president of the Southern Association for Women Historians and as a member of numerous committees within the Southern Historical Association, the American Historical Association, and the Organization of American Historians.
Dean Krauthamer has received awards and funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Stanford University’s Research Institute for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity, Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
She earned her B.A. in government from Dartmouth College, an M.A. in history from Washington University in St. Louis, and a Ph.D. in history from Princeton University. At Emory, she is committed to fostering a vibrant intellectual community, supporting interdisciplinary collaboration, and enhancing the undergraduate experience through a strong liberal arts education.
