Karen Sieber

Karen Sieber (she/her) is the New Media Assistant in the Art & Art History Department, supporting faculty in the planning, producing, and implementing of digital engagement experiences, digital pedagogy, and digital research. From mapping to textual analysis, and from big data to virtual reality, Sieber is interested in the power of digital tools and technologies to help scholars and students alike engage with scholarship and the world around them in new ways.  

Sieber is an NEH award-winning scholar of social justice history and cultural history, often working through public humanities and digital humanities methods. She is best known as the creator of Visualizing the Red Summer, which is part of the AP African American Studies curriculum nationwide, or for her role in documentaries and TV shows like Tulsa 1921: An American Tragedy. Her research has also appeared in Smithsonian, Jacobin, The Conversation, Public Humanities, NPR, PBS, and in the book Where Are the Workers?: Labor’s Stories at Museums and Historic Sites. Her work has been highlighted by the American Historical Association, National Archives, Library of Congress, and Minnesota Historical Society among others.

In addition to her work at Macalester, she is also an online adjunct professor in digital history, public history, and museum and archive studies for Southern New Hampshire University, where she received the 2026 Outstanding Educator Award.  She previously worked for the Minnesota Humanities Center, the University of Maine’s McGillicuddy Humanities Center, and UNC-Chapel Hill’s Digital Innovation Lab. She earned a B.A. in American Studies and Urban History from UNC Chapel Hill, graduating summa cum laude and with Honors. Following UNC, she studied nonprofit management at Duke University, and then earned an MA in Public History at Loyola University Chicago with a focus in museum studies and digital humanities.