Greta Swain

Greta Swain joined the Center for Presidential History in August 2023. She is a historian of early American history and digital history. She is also co-editor of Current Research in Digital History, an online, peer reviewed, open access journal which she helped create in 2018.

Greta’s book project Potomac Networks: Waterways, Commerce, and Enslavement in the George Mason Family, 1700–1828 presents a new approach to the Mason family by employing digital analysis and visualizations, and focusing on waterways, aquatic business ventures and local connections. Greta’s work has been supported by GMU’s Center for Humanities Research and the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon.

Greta received her PhD in History from George Mason University in 2023. From 2017–2021, Greta was a Digital History Fellow and collaborator at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. There she served as the project manager for American Religious Ecologies, and a key team member for Mapping Early American Elections, DataScribe, Mapping the University, and For Us the Living. She also has over a decade of experience as a scholar and practitioner of public history, including work at several museums and the Smithsonian Institute Archives.

In addition to her digital and public history work, Greta enjoys teaching digital skills and methods to students, staff and faculty, and developing them as digital scholars. Greta regularly presents workshops at conferences and universities about topics such as QGIS, transcription, database creation and network analysis. At George Mason she taught the History Department's undergraduate digital history course.