Douglas Bradburn, President and CEO of George Washington’s Mount Vernon and the former Founding Director of the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon, is an award-winning author and well-known scholar of early American history. 

Dr. Bradburn is the author of The Citizenship Revolution: Politics and the Creation of the American Union, 1774-1804, and three anthologies, including Early Modern Virginia: Reconsidering the Old Dominion, the most significant book produced to mark the 400th anniversary of the English founding of Jamestown. He is the co-founder and editor of the award-winning book series, Early American Histories, at the University of Virginia Press, and the winner of numerous awards, grants, and fellowships, including the yearlong Gilder Lehrman Research Fellowship at the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello.

He is the recipient of five Telly awards for his work on animated documentaries for use in the classroom and a “Thea” award for the popular Be Washington interactive educational game. Dr. Bradburn has appeared on CSPAN, Good Morning America, CBS Sunday Morning, and was most recently featured in the History’s channels docudrama, WASHINGTON.

Before coming to Mount Vernon, Bradburn served as Chair of the History Department at Binghamton University, State University of New York. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago and his B.A. in history and economics from the University of Virginia.