Elizabeth A. Fenn | |
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| Born | (1959-09-22)September 22, 1959 (age 66) Arlington, California, U.S.[1] |
| Alma mater | Duke University Yale University |
| Occupation | Historian |
| Notable work | Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People |
| Spouse | |
| Awards | Pulitzer Prize for History |
Elizabeth Anne Fenn (born September 22, 1959) is an American historian. Her bookEncounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People, won the 2015Pulitzer Prize for History.[2] She serves as theWalter S. and Lucienne Driskill chair in Western American History atUniversity of Colorado-Boulder.[1]
Fenn received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history (with honors)[3] fromDuke University in 1981, then attendedYale University, finishing her master's degree in 1985. Fenn originally planned to write her dissertation onmillenarianism in Native American culture, but left her doctoral program at Yale before it was finished, as she was "bored" with academia. Fenn entered the auto mechanic program atDurham Technical Community College and worked as a mechanic around theDurham, North Carolina, area for eight years before returning to Yale in 1995 to complete her studies.Pox Americana, her dissertation about the1775–82 North American smallpox epidemic, was written while working part-time, and completed in 1999.[4] Fenn was interviewed on multiple national news outlets about biological warfare after theSeptember 11 attacks.[5]
Fenn won the 2004Cox Book Prize for her workPox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-1782.[6] She received the Public Scholar Award from theNational Endowment for the Humanities in 2019.[7]
Prior to joining theUniversity of Colorado at Boulder in 2012,[8] Fenn taught atGeorge Washington University from 1999 to 2002 and Duke from 2002 to 2012.[5]
She marriedPeter H. Wood in 1999.[9]
