Keisha N. Blain is an American historian and writer. She is an Associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh and President of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS). She is “one of the most innovative and influential young historians of her generation.”
Blain is one of the nation’s leading scholars of African American history, African Diaspora Studies, and Women’s and Gender History.
Upon completing her postdoctoral research in 2015, Blain accepted a faculty position at the University of Iowa for two years. While there, she received an American Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship from the American Association of University Women (AAUW). She also received a two year Summer Institute on Tenure and Professional Advancement Fellowship at Duke University during the summer. In 2017, Blain accepted a faculty position at the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of history. She co-edited Charleston Syllabus: Readings on Race, Racism, and Racial Violence with Chad Williams and Kidada Williams in 2016. She became senior editor of Black Perspectives, the blog of the African American Intellectual History Society in 2016. In 2017, Blain was awarded the Roy Rosenzweig Prize for Innovation in Digital History from the American Historical Association (AHA).