Robert B. Townsend

Robert Townsend oversees Humanities, Arts, and Culture programs, the Washington office of the American Academy, and day-to-day work on the Humanities Indicators.

Prior to the Academy, he spent 24 years at the American Historical Association, in positions ranging from editorial assistant to deputy director. He is the author of History’s Babel: Scholarship, Professionalization, and the Historical Enterprise in the United States, 1880-1940 (University of Chicago Press, 2013) and author or co-author of over 200 articles on various aspects of history, higher education, and public humanities. He received his PhD in history from George Mason University.