Daina Ramey Berry is a distinguished historian whose research centers on nineteenth-century American history, comparative slavery, Southern history, and the roles of gender, labor, family, and economy in the lives of the enslaved. She earned her B.A. in History (1992), M.A. in African American Studies (1994), and Ph.D. in United States History (1998), all from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her academic career includes assistant professorships at Arizona State University (1998–2000) and Michigan State University (2000–2006), followed by associate professorship at Michigan State (2006–2009). In 2010, she joined the University of Texas at Austin as Associate Professor of History and African and African Diaspora Studies, advancing to full professor, Oliver H. Radkey Regents Professor of History (2018), Chair of the History Department (2020), and Associate Dean of the Graduate School (2019). Her scholarship has been supported by prestigious fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, Ford Foundation, and American Association of University Women.

Berry's major publications include Swing the Sickle for the Harvest is Ripe: Gender and Slavery in Antebellum Georgia (University of Illinois Press, 2007), The Price for their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation (Beacon Press, 2017), which received the Robert W. Hamilton Book Author Award in 2018, and A Black Women’s History of the United States (co-authored with Kali Nicole Gross, Beacon Press, 2020). She co-edited Slavery and Freedom in Savannah (University of Georgia Press, 2014) and Sexuality & Slavery: Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the Americas (University of Georgia Press, 2018), and served as chief editor of Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia (ABC-CLIO, 2012). At UT Austin, she received the President's Associates Teaching Excellence Award (2019) and held fellowships such as the George W. Littlefield Professorship in American History and Walter Prescott Webb Chair in History. Her work has profoundly influenced understandings of enslaved human capital, slave mortality, and gender dynamics in slavery, appearing in key volumes like Slavery’s Capitalism (2016) and After Piketty (2017). Berry has contributed to public history through PBS appearances, Wikipedia projects on Black women, and curating series for A&E Biography.

Professional Email: drb@austin.utexas.edu