Sheila A. Brennan
Strategic planner, public historian, experienced grant maker, and technologist committed to open infrastructure and cultural heritage that empowers and enables people to do history that matters.
- Role
- Director of Institutional Relations at Digital Scholar
- Location
- Arlington, VA, US
- LinkedIn followers
- 500 followers
About Sheila A. Brennan
Currently, I serve as the Director of Institutional Relations at Digital Scholar, home of your favorite free, open source software tools: Zotero | Omeka | Tropy | PressForward| Sourcery. Prior to joining Digital Scholar, I had the honor of serving as a federal grant maker with the National Endowment for the Humanities. As the Assistant Director of the Office of Data and Evaluation, I oversaw $3+million in initiatives supporting data collection and analysis of NEH grantmaking and across sectors to better understand the value and impact of the humanities. As a Senior Program Officer in the Office of Digital Humanities, I collaborated with a small team that funded $7 million in DH research and capacity building grants each year. From 20••••24, I led the Dangers and Opportunities of Technology: Perspectives from the Humanities initiative that quickly became ODH\'s largest grant program. Before funding DH projects, I spent 13 years leading and developing digital projects at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM). My last role was as the Director of Strategic Initiatives where I strategized, conceptualized, and implemented a robust research agenda. I contributed to nearly 25 digital humanities projects and brought in nearly $13 million dollars in funding, and collaborated with libraries, archives, and museums doing digital public history and humanities. As a Research Associate Professor, I developed and taught courses and workshops for library, archive, and museum professionals, and university faculty in digital methods, project management and planning, and public history. I created a virtual internship program for GMU\'s Digital Public Humanities Certificate. I drew heavily upon my experiences working as a public historian in museums prior to being hired at GMU, and focused my graduate training in digital history, museums, and memory. Some of my key contributions include developing scholarly-driven history websites designed for non-academics audiences, and working closely with communities and individuals to collect and save their own history through digital means. I continue to research and write on topics in digital history, US cultural history, collecting, postal history, and public history.
Experience
Director of Institutional Relations
Aug 2025 — Present · Falls Church, VA, US
Education
George Mason University
PhD
2002 — 2009
Bates College
BA
1990 — 1994
George Mason University
Certificate
2015 — 2015
University of Notre Dame
MA
1994 — 1996
Skills
- Research
- Community Outreach
- Nonprofits
- Libraries
- Library
- University Teaching
- Program Development
- History
- Archival Research
- American History
- Cultural Heritage
- Qualitative Research
- Grant Writing
- Teaching
- Web Project Management
- Museum Education
- Museums
- Higher Education
- Writing
- Digitization
- Public History
- Public Speaking
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