Tiya Miles

Tiya Miles is the Michael Garvey Professor of History and Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. She earned an AB in Afro-American Studies from Harvard University, an MA in Women’s Studies from Emory University, and a PhD in American Studies from the University of Minnesota. Prior to Harvard, she taught on the faculty of the University of Michigan for sixteen years, serving as Chair of the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies and Director of the Native American Studies Program. She founded ECO Girls, providing environmental and cultural opportunities for girls in urban Southeast Michigan.

Miles is a public historian, academic historian, and creative writer whose work explores intersections of African American, Native American, and women’s histories in the nineteenth-century U.S. South, Midwest, and West. Her Harvard courses address slavery and public history, women’s history and literature, Black and Indigenous histories, and environmental humanities, with growing emphasis on Black environmental consciousness. Key publications include Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People (Penguin, 2024), Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation (W.W. Norton, 2023), and All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake (2021), which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, Cundill History Prize, and nine other awards, achieving New York Times bestseller status. Other acclaimed books are The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Bondage and Freedom in the City of the Straits (2017), Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom (2015), and The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story (2010); she is the only current two-time winner of the Frederick Douglass Book Prize. Honors include MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship (2011-2016), Guggenheim Fellowship (2024-2025), and American Historical Association Equity Award (2022). Miles has consulted for the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and other institutions, shaping public histories of slavery and race.

Professional Email: tiyamiles@fas.harvard.edu