Dr. Alexander received her B.A. from Stanford University, her M.A. from Cornell University, and her Ph.D from Cornell University. She joined the Department of History in 1999 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in 2007. A specialist in African American and American History, Dr. Alexander's teaching and research interests focus on Black culture, nationalism, the creation of community, and political movements.
Her first monograph, entitled "African or American?: Black Identity and Political Activism in New York City, 1784-1861," explores Black culture, identity, and political activism during the early national and antebellum eras.
She is also the co-editor of "'We Shall Independent Be:' African American Place-Making and the Struggle to Claim Space in the United States."
Within the past year, Dr. Alexander has won several university awards, including the University Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching, the University Distinguished Diversity Enhancement Award, the College of Humanities Diversity Enhancement Award, and was selected as one of the “Seven Stars” in the College of Humanities.
Dr. Alexander's next project, tentatively titled "The Cradle of Hope: African American Internationalism in the Nineteenth Century,” is an exploration of early African American foreign policy. In particular, it examines how African American activists became involved in international movements for racial and social justice in countries such as Haiti, Cuba, and Brazil.
A recipient of several prestigious fellowships, including the Ford
Foundation Post Doctoral Fellowship and the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, Dr. Alexander has most recently presented her research at the annual meetings of the Association of African American Life and History (ASALH), the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD), the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the African Heritage Studies Association. In 1999, she was elected to the Executive Board of the African Heritage Studies Association. She also currently serves on the Committee on Women Historians for the American Historical Association, and is on the Executive Board of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD).
Along with Dr. Walter Rucker in the Department of African American and African Studies, Dr. Alexander is co-editing the Encyclopedia of African American History, which will be published by ABC-Clio in early 2010. Her most recent publication is entitled "The Black Republic: The Influence of the Haitian Revolution on Black Political Consciousness, 1817-1861," which appears in African Americans and the Haitian Revolution: Selected Essays and Historical Documents, eds. Maurice Jackson and Jacqueline Bacon. Routledge, 2009.
For more information on "African or American," see: http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/64skb3rz9780252033360.html.
For additional information on "We Shall Independent Be," see: http://www.upcolorado.com/bookdetail.asp?isbn=978-0-87081-906-3
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