Dean's Office

About Dean Daina Ramey Berry

Daina Ramey Berry is the Michael Douglas Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts and a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In this role, she leads one of the campus’s largest academic divisions. Before joining UC Santa Barbara, she served as chair of the Department of History and associate dean of the Graduate School at the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Berry researches, writes and teaches about the lives of the enslaved, the long-lasting repercussions of slavery and Black women’s history in the United States. She is the award-winning author, co-author or editor of 11 books, including A Black Women’s History of the United States (Beacon Press, 2020), co-written with Kali Nicole Gross, and The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation (Beacon Press, 2017). She co-authored America: A Narrative History (W. W. Norton, 2024) and is a co-author of three U.S. history textbooks for middle school, high school and college students. Dr. Berry also advises films and television programs about history and consults with museums and historical societies.

Dean Berry earned her B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in African American Studies and U.S. History from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a fellow of the Society for American Historians and the American Antiquarian Society and a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians.