VanJessica Gladney
استادیار · History of Slavery and Emancipation
University of Pennsylvaniaمعرفی
VanJessica Gladney is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Boston, specializing in African American history and public history. She maintains active roles as Digital Historian and Lead Tour Guide for the Penn & Slavery Project at the University of Pennsylvania and founded the HaVeN Scholars Society to support underrepresented students.
Her educational background includes:
- Ph.D. in History, University of Pennsylvania (2025)
- M.A. in History, University of Pennsylvania (2021)
- B.A. in English, University of Pennsylvania (2018)
Dr. Gladney's research explores how enslaved women navigated spaces to claim personhood, the intellectual history of 19th-century Philadelphia abolitionism, and institutional complicity in slavery. Her groundbreaking Penn & Slavery Project research—featured in The Philadelphia Inquirer and AHA Perspectives—exposed UPenn's ties to slavery, directly resulting in the removal of a slave-owning statue and campus memorialization efforts. She approaches history as a tool for social justice through digital storytelling and community engagement.
Her 10 publications since 2018 reveal a consistent focus on translating academic research into public impact, with recent works leveraging augmented reality and podcast media to democratize historical knowledge. Themes center on historical memory, reparative justice, and the afterlives of slavery in American institutions.
She has received significant recognition:
- Presidential PhD Fellowship
- Provost Public Historian Fellowship
As a new faculty member, Dr. Gladney emphasizes collaborative mentorship through public history projects. Her CETLI Graduate Teaching Fellowship experience informs an inclusive pedagogy that trains students in ethical historical practice. Current collaborations with the Penn & Slavery Project and William Still 200 initiative provide platforms for student involvement in digital humanities and community-based research.
She leads digital innovation for the Penn & Slavery Project, developing its augmented reality mobile application and managing the project website to showcase undergraduate research. These platforms transform campus spaces into interactive historical landscapes, enabling public exploration of slavery's legacy through location-based storytelling and archival materials.
