Emily Hawk, Ph.D.

Emily Hawk, Ph.D., is a twentieth-century United States cultural historian and a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University.

Her current book project, The Movements of Black Modern Dance: Choreography, Education, and Community Engagement, 1960–1976, explores how a cohort of Black choreographers intervened in discourse on race, cultural identity, and civic engagement by performing beyond conventional theatrical settings and engaging diverse national audiences. Her scholarship has appeared in the Journal of Urban History and the Journal of American Culture.

Hawk has contributed essays to Picturing Black History, the Gotham blog, and Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America. Her book reviews have appeared in The Nation, History Today, and The Carryall. She has given talks for the New York Public Library, 92NY, the National Museum of American History, and the Snug Harbor Cultural Center. She is also co-founder of the Histories of Dance Working Group of the Dance Studies Association. 

Hawk's research has been supported by fellowships and grants from the Smithsonian Institution, Rockefeller Archives, Society for U.S. Intellectual History, New York State Archives, Emory University, and the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. She has also been recognized the Dance Studies Association's Selma Jeanne Cohen Award, the Popular Culture Association's William M. Jones Award, and the Western Association of Women Historians' Perry Graduate Poster Prize.

Hawk is committed to teaching and student mentorship, grounded by a love for the liberal arts. A 2021 finalist for Columbia University’s Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching, she has served as a Faculty Diversity Fellow, an advisor to rural college applicants with the Fair Opportunity Project (2022–present), and an undergraduate academic advisor with Columbia’s Center for American Studies (2019–2022).

Hawk earned her Ph.D. in U.S. History from Columbia University, an M.A. with distinction in dance history from the University of Roehampton, and a B.A., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, in dance and history from Franklin & Marshall College. She resides in Philadelphia with her husband, Mark Harmon-Vaught, a higher education administrator.