Dr. Kendra Taira Field is the Gerald R. Gill Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for Public History at Tufts University. She is currently a 2025−26 Hutchins Fellow at Harvard University.

Field is the author of Growing Up with the Country (Yale, 2018), which traced her own ancestors’ lives in slavery and freedom. Her current book project, The Stories We Tell (W.W. Norton), is a history of African American genealogy and storytelling from the Middle Passage to the present, and winner of a 2023 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant. Field abridged David Levering Lewis’ W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography (Henry Holt, 2009), and her scholarly articles have appeared in numerous journals.

As a public historian, Field co-founded the Du Bois Forum, a retreat for writers, scholars, and artists, and serves as chief historian for the 10 Million Names Project. Field served as project historian for the Du Bois Freedom Center, the first museum in North America dedicated to the life and work of W.E.B. Du Bois; and co-curated “We Who Believe In Freedom: Black Feminist DC,” the inaugural exhibition of the National Women’s History Museum. Field has advised and appeared in historical documentaries including Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross” (2013), “Roots: A History Revealed” (2016), and “Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre” (2021).

Most recently, Field joined Robert Hartwell on screen throughout the new six-episode streaming saga, Breaking New Ground, now live on HBO Max. Field received her Ph.D. in American History from New York University. She also holds a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a B.A. from Williams College. Before entering the academy, she worked in education, organizing, and the non-profit sector in Boston and New York.