Benvenuto!

I’m Alessandra, an educator and historian living in Louisville, Kentucky. In 2018, I graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a Ph.D. in history. I am currently a member of the Upper School Faculty at Louisville Collegiate School, where I teach American Studies and support community service and outreach programs.

In 2025 I joined the Strother School for Radical Attention’s Educators for Attention Cohort. We meet monthly the explore how to explicitly cultivate attentional practices in the classroom. Learn more about the Attention Activism Movement here.

That same year, my book, The Iron Horse in Indian Country: Native Americans and Railroads in the U.S. West, came out with Oxford University Press (recent review in the American Historical Review here, and link to purchase from my beloved local bookstore here).

Outside of my work with the bright and hardworking students at Collegiate, I continue partnering with organizations engaged in public history work. Since 2019 I have been involved with an award-winning public history initiative titled Railroads in Native America (see a write up in High Country News about Railroads in Native America). In 2026 I joined the Cave Hill Heritage Foundation Communications and Outreach Committee. I am also on the awards committee for the Western Historical Association’s Louise Pubols Prize in Public History.

Questions?

Ideas?

Opportunities for collaboration?

You can reach me at alessandra.n.link {at} gmail.com.