2026 AHA Election Ballot American Historical Association

2026 AHA Election Ballot

Please select your choices by clicking the button to the left of the name and click Submit by July 15, 2026, 11:59 pm Eastern time. You can only vote once and cannot modify your ballot once it is submitted. The fact that you voted will be recorded, but the votes themselves are tabulated anonymously. Complete details on candidates, including web pages, CVs, and statements, can be found on the AHA website.

The Coordinating Group for Democracy in History (the Palestinian Historians Group, Historians for Palestine, Historians for Peace and Democracy) submitted petitions for candidates as a group. Those candidates are indicated below as "by group petition."

1. President
The president-elect stands unopposed for election to president. The current president Suzanne Marchand, Louisiana State Univ.

Lonnie Bunch III, Smithsonian Institution (secretary; US, museums, African American history, American presidency/sport/film)

2. President-elect
The president-elect serves a one-year term. At the end of the term, he or she stands unopposed for election for president. The current president-elect is Lonnie Bunch III, Smithsonian Institution.

The Nominating Committee sought historians specializing in an area outside the US or Europe.

	Tobie S. Meyer-Fong, Johns Hopkins Univ. (professor and chair; East Asia, social and cultural history of China since 1600)
	Lynn M. Thomas, Univ. of Washington (Giovanni and Amne Costigan Endowed Prof. in History and dir., Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities; East African politics and gender)
	By group petition: Eve M. Troutt Powell, Univ. of Pennsylvania (Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of History and Africana Studies; Middle East, race and slavery)

3. Research Division
The AHA Research Division works to help promote historical scholarship, preserve historical documents and artifacts, ensure equal and open access to information, and foster the dissemination of information about historical records and research. Returning members are Cemil Aydin (Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and Van Gosse (Franklin & Marshall Coll.).

Vice President

The Nominating Committee sought historians of Latin America with digital history expertise and women for gender parity on the division.

	Jane Landers, Vanderbilt Univ. (Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History; colonial Latin America and Atlantic world, Africans and their descendants)
	Lara Putnam, Univ. of Pittsburgh (professor; historical methods and digital technology, Latin America and Caribbean, transnational labor/immigration/gender, Rust Belt politics)
	By group petition: Sherene Seikaly, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara (associate professor; Palestine, Sudan, capitalism)

4. Council Member

The Nominating Committee sought historians working in public history and women for gender parity on the division.

	Rose Miron, Minnesota Historical Society (senior director, Library, Archives, and Collections; Indigenous history across the Great Lakes, public history and memory)
	Margaret Salazar-Porzio, Oatlands, National Trust for Historic Preservation (executive director; public history/preservation/humanities leadership, visual and material culture)
	By group petition: Kevin A. Young, Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst (associate professor; modern Latin America, social movements, US-Latin American relations)

5. Professional Division
The AHA Professional Division promotes integrity, fairness, and civility in the practice of history. Returning members are Karin Wulf, vice president (John Carter Brown Library and Brown Univ.); Jennifer McNabb (Univ. of Northern Iowa); and M. Raisur Rahman (Wake Forest Univ.).

Council Member

The Nominating Committee sought historians working as contingent faculty or in public history to bring a broader perspective to the division.

	Jim Ambuske, More Perfect (director of digital history; American Revolution, Scotland, British Atlantic world, public history, podcasting)
	L. Bao Bui, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago (visiting lecturer; food politics, military, foreign relations, US Civil War)
	By group petition: Ellen Schrecker, Yeshiva Univ. (professor of history (retired); post-1945 US, dissent and repression in the US, McCarthyism, US higher education)

6. Teaching Division
The AHA Teaching Division collects and disseminates information about the training of teachers, studies and encourages innovative methods of instruction, and works to foster cooperation among faculty. Returning members are Serena Zabin, vice president (Carleton Coll.); Edward Cohn (Grinnell Coll.); Karen Miller (LaGuardia Comm. Coll., CUNY).

Council Member

The Nominating Committee sought accomplished teachers who could draw on their experiences in K-12 education to inform the work of the division.

	Samantha Futrell, William & Mary Strategic Cultural Partnerships and Virginia Council for the Social Studies (master teacher and president; US, secondary writing instruction)
	Wayne Zhang, Roald Amundsen High School, Chicago Public Schools (National Board Certified Teacher and social studies department chair; world studies)
	By group petition: Alan Parkes, Longwood Univ. (assistant professor and director of social studies education; 20th-century US, music, urban)

7. Council Member, At Large
This Council member will represent the interests of graduate students in Council, play a leadership role in organizing participation of graduate students in AHA activities, and disseminate information about AHA activities and initiatives to graduate students in history.

The Nominating Committee sought PhD candidates with a demonstrated interest in leadership.

	Christopher Hulshof, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison (PhD candidate; empire/covert operations/Cold War Southeast Asia)
	Andrew Varsanyi, Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln (PhD candidate; 19th-century Great Plains class/civic association/democratic life)

8. Committee on Committees
The Committee on Committees nominates individuals to fill vacancies on all regular Association committees. Returning members are Carol Harrison (Univ. of South Carolina); Linh Vu (Arizona State Univ.); and Laura J. Mitchell (Univ. of California, Irvine).

The Nominating Committee sought Latin American historians as well as men for gender diversity on the committee.

	Alan L. McPherson, Temple Univ. (professor; US foreign relations, US-Latin American relations, global)
	Zachary R. Morgan, Ohio State Univ. (associate professor, Department of Comparative Studies; race, slavery, abolition, Afro-Latin American studies, Brazil)

9. Nominating Committee
The Nominating Committee makes nominations for all elective posts in the AHA, oversees the counting of ballots, and reports the results of the election to the membership. Returning members are Hilary Green (Davidson Coll.); Hiromi Mizuno (Univ. of Minnesota, Twin Cities); Dana Rabin (Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign); Alexander Aviña (Arizona State Univ.); Mariana P. Candido (Emory Univ.); and Prasannan Parthasarathi (Boston Coll.).

Slot 1

The Nominating Committee sought public historians for this position.

	Brett Rushforth, Huntington Library (editor in chief, Huntington Library Quarterly; early American slavery, French Atlantic, Indigenous America)
	Sam Vong, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (curator of Asian Pacific American History; Asian American, refugees)

10. Slot 2

The Nominating Committee sought historians who specialize in Europe for this position.

	Jennifer L. Foray, Indiana Univ. (associate professor; modern imperialism and decolonization, Dutch-Indonesian relationship, pedagogy, methods and historiography)
	Karen Petrone, Univ. of Kentucky (professor; cultural, gender, propaganda, war and memory, Russia and Soviet Union, Holocaust education)

11. Slot 3

The Nominating Committee sought historians who specialize in early time periods for this position.

	James F. Brooks, Univ. of Georgia (Carl and Sally Gable Distinguished Professor of History; Indigenous and colonial past)
	Baki Tezcan, Univ. of California, Davis (professor; premodern Middle East, early modern Ottoman sociopolitical, early modern transformation of Islam)

2026 AHA Election Ballot

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