November 07, 2007

Albany – The Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the State University of New York is pleased to announce that Gary H. Dunham has been appointed director of the State University of New York Press, effective January 2, 2008.

Gary H. Dunham's Background:

Dunham was raised in rural Maine and in Glens Falls, where some of his family still live. A 1982 summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Bowdoin College, Dunham went on to complete both his M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Virginia.

There, he directed the excavation of a large prehistoric burial mound along the Rapidan River in Virginia, working with the local Monacan tribe to excavate, study, and eventually rebury the remains of their ancestors. In addition to his career in university press publishing, Dunham has taught anthropology at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and Creighton University. Recently he co-edited a book on American Indian powwows.

Dunham joined the University of Nebraska Press in 1995, as an acquiring editor in indigenous studies and anthropology. Nebraska is now recognized as one of the leading presses in the world in those fields, with Dunham in 2001 being named Publisher of the Year by the nationally acclaimed Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. He was promoted to editor-in-chief in 1997 and was appointed director in 2004.

Under his leadership, the Nebraska press moved forward rapidly to expand its journals program, to digitalize its entire inventory, and to develop state-wide partnerships with the Nebraska State Historical Society; the Office of Research at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln; and the University of Nebraska’s Digital Center for the Humanities, where he has served on the advisory board.