Laura M. Chmielewski

Laura M. Chmielewski is a Professor of History at Purchase College's School of Humanities, where she co-founded the Museum Studies minor. She holds a BA from St. Joseph’s University, an MA from Fordham University, and an MPhil/PhD from the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her public history collaborations include serving as historian-in-residence at Historic Hudson Valley and contributing to the NEH-funded project People not Property: Stories of Slavery in Colonial New York.

Her research explores Atlantic World religious practices, colonial Catholicism, maritime history, and material culture. She is currently developing book-length studies on maritime religion in the early Americas and the rhetoric of living history sites like Colonial Williamsburg.

She has received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence, a Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title Award, and the Peter and Bette Fishbein Junior Faculty Award. Her public lectures span organizations such as the National Park Service, Viking Cruises, and the New-York Historical Society.