Barbara Krauthamer was born in 1967 in
New Jersey. Her father was a
German Jew who had fled to the United States in 1938, later co-founding the
Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. Her mother was "the first
African American woman to receive a doctorate in
clinical psychology from
Rutgers University". After growing up in
Princeton, New Jersey, Krauthamer attended
Dartmouth College, where she initially majored in
neuroscience. While at Dartmouth, Krauthamer organized and led rallies against
apartheid in South Africa, later switching her major to government. She graduated from Dartmouth in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in government. After working at
public defender's offices in
New York City and
Washington, D.C. for several years, Krauthamer began attending graduate school at
Washington University in St. Louis, graduating in 1994 with a master's degree in
history. She received a doctorate in history from
Princeton University in 2000. After working as a faculty member at
New York University, Krauthamer became an
assistant professor of history at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2008, specializing in
African-American history and the
history of slavery. In 2013, she published the book
Black Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, and Citizenship in the Native American South, which is the "first full-length study of chattel slavery and the lives of enslaved people in the
Choctaw and
Chickasaw Indian nations". The same year, she and photographer
Deborah Willis co-authored
Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery, a book which featured over 150 historical images of African Americans.
Envisioning Emancipation was highly recognized, and was awarded the 2013
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Non-Fiction. Krauthamer has also edited
Major Problems in African American History, a prominent textbook in the field. In 2017, she was awarded the
Lorraine A. Williams Leadership Award by the
Association of Black Women Historians for her efforts in creating "opportunities for Black women in higher education". From 2018 to 2019, Krauthamer was also the president of the
Southern Association for Women Historians. In 2017, Krauthamer was appointed dean of the University of Massachusetts Graduate School, overseeing the university's graduate program. In this role, she "created multiple fellowship and mentoring programs designed to support the recruitment and retention of traditionally underrepresented graduate students". She had previously served as graduate program director in the department of history, where she advocated for increased diversity and changes to the admissions and funding processes for doctoral students. Krauthamer was appointed dean of the
University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Humanities and Fine Arts in 2020. On November 1, 2022, she was appointed to the Massachusetts Cultural Council by Governor
Charlie Baker. On July 1, 2023, Krauthamer left the University of Massachusetts to become the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at
Emory University, becoming the university's first African American dean. On January 6, 2026, Krauthamer stepped down for personal reasons She remains an Emory College faculty member. == Publications ==