Undergraduate graduation. Magna Cum Laude with Honors

Born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, I chose to attend the University of Pennsylvania for college to pursue my interest in the history of early America, particularly colonial-era witchcraft crazes. Once at Penn, however, I quickly left colonial America and my pre-med classes behind after enrolling in the legendary "History of the South" lecture series (HIST170/171) taught by Professors Stephanie McCurry and Steven Hahn. Interested in thinking about the Civil War from untraditional perspectives, I started researching western experiences of the Civil War. I completed my B.A. in American History with Distinction in May 2013 after writing a senior honors thesis on the Dakota War of 1862 as a Civil War event. My archival research using Indigenous sources for my thesis project convinced me that the strict separation between Indian wars and the Civil War had obscured the Native American experience of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. The truly national history of the Civil War & Reconstruction eras was only starting to receive the attention it deserves.

​After graduating from Penn magna cum laude with honors, I began my Ph.D. in American history at Stanford University under the direction of Dr. Richard White. 
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​My dissertation, which grew out of my sustained interest in demonstrating the historical relationship between the Civil War and Reconstruction eras and the so-called Indian Wars of the West, redefines the nineteenth century's "Indian Question" as a Reconstruction problem and project. Using federal and Native government sources from Indian Territory, and the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw  and Seminole Nations that relocated there, I show that emancipation in the South and the suppression of Native American sovereignty in the West were related state-building projects produced by the Civil War’s empowerment of federal authority. As my work reveals, federal Indian policy is essential for fully accounting for the successes and failures of Reconstruction and the benefits and costs of expanded federal power and prerogative after 1865. I see this project as part of my larger goal as a scholar to excavate the substantial relationship between Native and American political history relevant to academics and the larger public which I pursue in my research, teaching, and public speaking.
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As close as I got to a photo with my dissertation advisor since I graduated during the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic

​After graduating from Stanford in 2020, I became an ACLS Postdoctoral Fellow and Substitute Assistant Professor at the City College of New York

In August 2022, I transitioned to the tenure track as an Assistant Professor of History at CCNY. While at City College, I have taught U.S. history (Civil War & Reconstruction; U.S. South; U.S. West), Native history (in 2021 & 2022, I offered the only dedicated survey course on Indigenous history at CUNY), the history of violence, and historical methodology courses. I am also at work on my first book: Native Reconstruction: Indian Territory & The Making of Modern American Power, 1861-1907, in addition article-length projects on Confederate Indian policy and the extent to which Elliott West's "Greater Reconstruction" concept has remained siloed in western/Native history. My primary scholarly passion is uncovering the history of Reconstruction policy and experience in Indian Country, as well as promoting Greater Reconstruction scholarship in academia and beyond. I created and run NativeReconstruction.com, in addition to organizing frequent conference sessions, in support of those goals.

​You can reach me at [email protected] or on social media @TheOtherDrStern.