Fellowship / Fellows

Annette Gordon-Reed

  • 2011–2012
  • Law
  • Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at Radcliffe
  • Harvard University
Annette Gordon-Reed [Photo by Tony Rinaldo]

This information is accurate as of the fellowship year indicated for each fellow.

Annette Gordon-Reed is the second appointee to the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professorship at the Radcliffe Institute, a professor of law at Harvard Law School, and a professor of history in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. A renowned law professor and scholar of American history, Gordon-Reed has taught at New York Law School and Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She has published six books, among them The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (W. W. Norton, 2008), which won the Pulitzer Prize in history and the National Book Award for nonfiction, and Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (University of Virginia Press, 1998), a nonfiction finalist in the Library of Virginia Annual Literary Awards.

While at Radcliffe, Gordon-Reed will work on two book projects: a collaboration with Peter S. Onuf titled “‘The Most Blessed of Patriarchs’: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination,” which will explore the development of Jefferson’s intellectual life; and volume two of her study of the Hemings family of Monticello, exploring the lives of several members during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Gordon-Reed’s many honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, a Cullman Center Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Humanities Medal, and a Woman of Power & Influence Award from the National Organization for Women in New York City. She holds a JD from Harvard Law School and an AB from Dartmouth College. Before becoming an academic, Gordon-Reed was counsel to the New York City Board of Correction.

How It Really Happened (Harvard Gazette, 12/5/13)

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