Scanlan, Sophia

Sophia Scanlan (she/her) is a PhD student in History at Columbia University. She studies twentieth-century Black women’s history through the lens of sports. In particular, her research focuses on sports as workplace where Black women in the mid-twentieth century performed professional and intellectual labor as athletes, physical educators, coaches, writers, trainers, and team owners. At Columbia, she also leads the Gender History Workshop and the Public History Workshop.

Sophia holds a B.A. in History from Northwestern University, where her research on Black women baseball players in the Negro Leagues won an honorable mention for the best honors thesis in the department. After college, Sophia spent two years teaching middle school English and History while earning her M.S.Ed. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. In addition to teaching, she also coached middle school cross country and varsity track.