Erica Sterling is an incoming assistant professor in the Corcoran Department of History. Her research explores the intersection of African American education, philanthropy and local and federal policy in the latter half of the twentieth century. Her forthcoming book project, focused on Washington, DC, aims to historicize the contemporary education reform movement, examining how K-12 reformers' reliance on innovation from the 1950s to the 1990s perpetuated inequity. 

Sterling earned her B.A. in history and psychology from Emory University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in history from Harvard University, and her work has been published in the Journal of African American History and Black Perspectives. She is also the curator for a forthcoming exhibit on the history of African American schooling in the nation’s capital. 

Sterling’s research has been supported by multiple entities, including the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard, the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, which award her a dissertation completion fellowship in 2021.

Before joining the faculty, Sterling spent two years as a Rising Scholars Postdoctoral Fellow in the history department at UVA, and next year she will complete the manuscript for her book as a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and will then resume her teaching duties with classes on the history of African American education, civil rights and historical methods.