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Hi there and welcome to  HistoryBrad, my personal and professional website! My name is Dr. Bradley J. “Brad” Sommer, PhD. So glad you’re here.

I am a historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History in Washington, D.C. All views expressed on my website are my own and are not reflective of my employer, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense. I am also an online adjunct professor at Miami University in Ohio. I’m currently working on a book project, Tomorrow Never Came: The Making of a Postindustrial City on Toledo Ohio in the latter half of the 20th century.

I’m originally from a small Midwestern city (go local tourist attraction!). I did my undergraduate work at the University of Toledo and my Master’s at the University of Cincinnati. I recently lived in Pittsburgh, where I earned my Doctorate in American History from Carnegie Mellon University. While there, I was a lucky enough to be a TA for a variety of classes and for hundreds of wonderful students, winning awards for my teaching (which I am sure I did not deserve, but I’m not complaining).

Because I am incapable of not being busy, while I was working on my PhD, I was doing a lot of nonprofit work. From 2017-2020, I was involved with the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS), the last years as President & CEO. In my time with NAGPS I worked on a variety of issues, all related to higher education, such as F-1 visa reauthorization, research funding, protecting DACA, student loan interest, public service loan forgiveness, food insecurity, and the advisor-advisee relationship. Additionally, I worked on NAGPS’ finances, partnerships, strategic plan, SOPs, and supervised the Board of Directors, all under the impending existential doom that was/is a global pandemic.

When not walking, writing, or talking about history with anyone who will listen, I spend most of my time reading, walking, watching sports, and adding to my collection of records and books. The books are getting to be a bit of a problem, as I now have over 2,000 of them (please send shelves).