R. ISABELA MORALES
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Education
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY | Princeton, NJ
Ph.D., History (2019)
M.A., History (2014)

THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA | Tuscaloosa, AL
B.A., History and American Studies (2012)
Summa cum laude with honors, McNair Scholars Program, Phi Beta Kappa

Work History
Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum | Skillman, NJ
  • Education and Exhibit Manager (March 2023 - Dec 2025)
  • Communications Manager (Oct 2021 - Feb 2023)

Radcliffe '75 Oral History Project | Radcliffe Harvard Class of 1975
  • Project Manager (Aug 2021 - July 2025)

​The Princeton & Slavery Project | Princeton University
  • Editor and Project Manager (Jan 2017 - Dec 2024)
  • Research Coordinator (Jan 2013 - Dec 2016)​​​
National September 11 Memorial & Museum | New York, NY
  • Manager of Exhibition Development (June 2019 - July 2021)​

Center for Digital Humanities at Princeton | Princeton University
  • Technical Lead - UNOW & Then Oral History Project (April 2018 - April 2019)​

Princeton School of Public and International Affairs | Princeton University
  • Researcher - Woodrow Wilson Marker Committee (Jan 2018 - June 2018)​

Honors & Awards
Career Awards
  • 2026 Dan David Prize | Dan David Foundation

Book Awards
  • 2024 James F. Sulzby Book Award (Winner) | Alabama Historical Association
  • 2023 Frederick Douglass Book Prize (Winner) | Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale University
  • 2023 Tom Watson Brown Book Award (Winner) | Society of Civil War Historians
  • ​2023 William Nelson Cromwell Foundation Early Scholar Book Prize (Winner)​ | American Society for Legal History
  • 2023 Shapiro Book Prize (Winner) | The Huntington Library
  • 2023 Harriet Tubman Prize (Finalist) | Lapidus Center at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NYPL​

Public History Awards
  • 2025 Leadership in History Award of Excellence | American Association for State and Local History ​-- Awarded for the 1899 Camp Meeting Reenactment (Public Programs category) and special exhibit "The Head that Wears the Crown: Black Women's Headwear from Slavery to the Present" (Exhibits category) at the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum

Professional Service & Memberships
Education Committee | Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum
  • Committee Member (Jan 2026 - present)
  • Committee Chair (Mar 2023 - Dec 2025)
Humanities Council | Princeton Public Library
  • Council Member (Oct 2021 - present)
Revolution NJ | New Jersey Historical Commission
  • Co-Chair, Scholarly and Public Programs Working Group (April 2021 - Jan 2024)
  • Advisory Council, 250th Anniversary Traveling Exhibition (Jan 2024 - May 2024)​​
Voices of Princeton | Princeton Public Library
  • Interview Facilitator (Jan 2018 - Aug 2018)

Select Publications
Books
​
  • The Black Widow of Hazel Green (forthcoming from Liveright)
  • Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom (Oxford University Press, 2022)
Long-Form
  • Slavery at the President's House ​| The Princeton & Slavery Project
  • Princeton's Slaveholding Presidents ​| The Princeton & Slavery Project 
  • Jonathan Edwards Jr. ​| The Princeton & Slavery Project​
  • "The Celebrated Alexander Dumas Watkins": Princeton's First Black Instructor ​| The Princeton & Slavery Project
  • Marcus Marsh and Benjamin Rush in Philadelphia ​| The Princeton & Slavery Project​​​
Short Form
  • An enslaved Alabama family and the question of generational wealth in the United States, OUPblog, Oxford University Press, 15 June 2022.
  • 100-Year-Old Love Story Uncovered in a Central Jersey Attic, Giving Voice, Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum, May 2022.
  • Benjamin Rush 1760: A Great Physician Had Help from a Freed Slave, ​Princeton Alumni Weekly, 10 April 2019
  • Ordinary Student, Extraordinary Event: Edward Shippen 1845, ​Princeton Alumni Weekly, 6 February 2019
  • ​Iconoclastic Son of an Iconic Father: Jonathan Edwards Jr. 1765, ​Princeton Alumni Weekly, 3 October 2018
Museum Publications
  • “Mt. Zion AME Church: Celebrating 125 Years,” Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum (Jan 2025)
  • “Stories of SSAAM,” Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum (Jan 2025)

Exhibitions
​Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum

​Curator
  • "All Stars: Black Baseball in NJ and Beyond" | Mt. Zion AME Church (Aug 2025)
  • "Art of the Witness Stones Project" | Montgomery Public Library (June 2025); Princeton Public Library (Feb 2025); Mt. Zion AME Church (June 2024); Somerset County Cultural & Heritage Gallery (Feb 2024)
  • "William Stives: American Patriot" | Historic Reasoner/True House (May 2023)
  • "From Fiddlers to Jazz Bands: African American Music in the Sourlands" | Mt. Zion AME Church (April 2023)
  • "African American Women of the Sourlands" |  Mt. Zion AME Church (March 2023), Montgomery Public Library (June 2023)
  • "Love Letters of Garland H. Fields" | Montgomery Public Library (Feb 2023)
​
Director
  • "Remembering Black Baseball in the Sourlands" | Video exhibit (Aug 2025)
  • "Voices of the Camp Meetings" | Video exhibit (Oct 2024)

Editor
  • "The Head that Wears the Crown: Black Women's Headwear from Slavery to Freedom" | Mt. Zion AME Church (Sept 2024)​

National September 11 Memorial & Museum
  • "September 11, 2001: The Day that Changed the World" | Content Lead | Downloadable poster exhibition (Sept 2021)
  • "World Trade Center History Online" | Contributor | Online exhibition

Select Conferences & Invited Talks
Conferences​​​​​​​
  • "History as Creative Writing," 2026 OAH Annual Conference, Organization of American Historians (April 2026)
  • "The Plot Thickens: Writing and Selling Stories in a Shifting Marketplace," Princeton Reunions Alumni-Faculty Forum, Princeton University (May 2025)
  • "Legacy Projects: The Princeton & Slavery Project," Revolution to Reparations: The Black Experience in New Jersey, Rutgers University-Newark (May 2025)
  • "Slavery in New Jersey," Remembrance and Reconciliation Fall Symposium, Princeton GAASA (November 2024)​
  • Keynote, 2024 Annual Meeting, Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums (June 2024)
  • “Interpreting Race at Civil War Battlefields,” 2024 Civil War Institute Annual Meeting, Gettysburg College (June 2024)
  • Keynote, 2024 Annual Meeting, Alabama Historical Association (April 2024)
  • ​Tom Watson Brown Book Award Lecture, 2023 SHA Annual Meeting, Southern Historical Association (November 2023)
  • ​Keynote, Huntsville-Madison County Historical Society Quarterly Meeting (March 2023)
  • "Writing Family History: Subjects, Sources, and Significance," 2022 SHEAR Annual Meeting, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (July 2022)
  • "Building a Place for History: Rediscovery & Renewal," 2022 New Jersey History and Historic Preservation Conference (June 2022)
  • ​Keynote, Historical Research Conference for Teens, Scarsdale Public Library (August 2021)
  • ​"African American Heritage in New Jersey," Embracing Cross-Cultural Diversity, Lead New Jersey (July 2021)​​
  • "Negotiating Racial Boundaries in the 19th-century American West," 2020 WHA Annual Meeting, Western History Association (October 2020)
  • “Monuments, Memory, and Memorialization in the Many Wests,” 2020 WHA Annual Meeting, Western History Association (October 2020)​​
  • ​"Sharing Untold Stories," Crossroads of the American Revolution and the New Jersey Historical Commission (January 2020)​
  • "A 'Not So Entirely Northern' School: Princeton University and the Antebellum South," 2019 SHEAR Annual Meeting, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (July 2019)​
  • "The Civil War at Princeton," A Campus Divided: War at Princeton, Princeton University (June 2018)
  • "Fathers and Slaves: Social Experiences, Constitutional Conflicts, and Religious Legacies of Slavery in American Life," 2018 OAH Annual Meeting, Organization of American Historians (April 2018)​
  • "Landscapes of Race," Modern America Workshop, Princeton University (February 2018)
  • "Town and Gown: Race and Violence in Princeton, New Jersey," Princeton & Slavery Project Symposium, Princeton University (November 2017)​​
Invited Talks​​​​​
  • Alabama Department of Archives & History | Montgomery, AL
  • Columbia University | New York, NY
  • The Huntington Library & Gardens | Pasadena, CA
  • Keeler Tavern Museum & History Center | Ridgefield, CT
  • Mahwah Public Library | Mahwah, NJ
  • Maplewood Adult School | Maplewood, NJ
  • Morven Museum & Garden | Princeton, NJ
  • Nassau Club of Princeton | Princeton, NJ
  • Princeton Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution | Princeton, NJ
  • Princeton Club of Northern California | San Francisco, CA
  • Princeton Public Library | Princeton, NJ
  • Princeton Senior Resource Center | Princeton, NJ​
  • ​Siloam Hope First Presbyterian Church | Elizabeth, NJ
  • Smith College | Northampton, MA
  • Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum | Skillman, NJ
  • The University of Alabama | Tuscaloosa, AL
  • The University of Alabama-Huntsville | Huntsville, AL
  • Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Princeton | Princeton, NJ​​
  • Vanderbilt University | Nashville, TN​​​​
Copyright © 2023
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