Dr. Jillean McCommons

Dr. Jillean McCommons is assistant professor of history and Africana studies. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of Kentucky, a M.A. from the University of Wisconsin, a M.S. from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. from Michigan State University. Her research examines the social, cultural, and political history of Black Appalachians during the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power era. She has published an essay on Black Perspectives, the blog of the African American Intellectual History Society, and book reviews in the Journal of African American History and the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. Her public-facing work includes op-eds in the Lexington Herald-Leader, History News Network, and Newsweek. She is a governor-appointed member of the Kentucky Oral History Commission

Dr. McCommons is the recipient of the 2024-2025 Wilma Dykeman “Faces of Appalachia” Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the Appalachian Studies Association. She was a 2020-2022 Pre-Doctoral fellow at the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia. She previously won the University of Kentucky Appalachian Center’s 2018 Eller & Billings Student Research Award, the UK Alumni Association's African American Alumni Group's Lyman T. Johnson Torch Bearer Award, and the UK College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.