Alexandra E. Stern Ph.D.

Ph.D. Stanford

Dissertation: Reconstructing Indian Territory: Federal vs. Native Power and the Expansion of American Sovereignty, 1861-1907

Alex Stern is an Assistant Professor of History at the City College of New York (CUNY). She holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and is a political historian of nineteenth-century America and Native America. At City College, where her work in the classroom has been recognized with a Rifkind Center for the Humanities & Arts Teaching Award, she offers courses on the Civil War & Reconstruction, U.S. South and West, Indigenous history, violence, and historical methods. Her current book project, Native Reconstruction, investigates the remaking of U.S. and Indigenous sovereignties after 1865 in Indian Territory and uncovers how federal Indian policy became a critical arena in which the revolutions of Reconstruction took place. She also runs the companion site, NativeReconstruction.com, which shares new scholarly work and teaching materials on Reconstruction in Indian country by early career and established scholars. In addition to her scholarly contributions, Stern has also served as an expert consultant in federal Indian law cases, including the Supreme Court case Sharp v. Murphy (later decided by the Court in McGirt v. Oklahoma).