Daina Ramey Berry

Daina Raney Berry, PhD, is the Chair of the History Department at The University of Texas at Austin. She holds the Oliver H. Radkey Regents Professorship of History and is a Fellow of Walter Prescott Webb Chair in History and the George W. Littlefield Professorship in American History at the University of Texas at Austin. Formerly the Associate Dean of The Graduate School, Dr. Berry lead a campus-wide initiative to transform funding, student outcomes, and career pathways at the university. In this capacity, she serves as the director of the American Association of Universities PhD Education Initiative at UT Austin which is part of a select group of eight universities participating in a pilot program to offer diverse career options for graduate students. One of her greatest passions has been training doctoral students in African American History.

Berry is the award-winning author and editor of six books and manyscholarly articles. One of her recent books, "The Price for their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to the Grave, in the Building of a Nation" (Beacon Press, 2017) received three book awards including the Phyllis Wheatley Award for Scholarly Research from the Sons and Daughters of the US Middle Passage; the 2018 Best Book Prize from the Society for the History of the Early American Republic (SHEAR); and the 2018 Hamilton Book Prize from the University Co-op for the best book among UT Austin faculty.