Profile

Dana Schaffer

American Historical Association

Contact Details

American Historical Association

Bio

Dana Schaffer is the Deputy DIrector at the American Historical Association. Prior to joining the AHA staff in February 2013, Dana served as the assistant director at the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University, where she planned and directed public and academic programs and initiatives. Dana began her career in public history as a docent at the Old South Meeting House on Boston's Freedom Trail. After serving as the education coordinator for the New England Historic Genealogical Society, Dana worked as a program coordinator for Smithsonian Journeys where she developed educational travel programs focusing on history, natural history, and arts and culture. While living in Washington, DC, Dana volunteered with the after-school program KidPower DC, working with inner-city fourth and fifth graders to foster the study of local history as a starting point for comprehensive citizenship training. She also served as assistant curator for the Mount Vernon Square Community Gallery exhibition at the City Museum of Washington, DC. As part of her graduate work, Dana conducted an oral history project on the 1968 riots in Washington, DC, which was published as an article in the peer-reviewed journal Washington History. She has also presented papers on her research at the Oral History Association Conference and Washington Historical Studies Conference and has worked at the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the North Carolina State Archives, and Harvard University Archives. Dana holds a BA in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MA in public history from American University.