Isabela Morales is an award-winning author and historian. She received her Ph.D. in history from Princeton University in 2019, and is the author of Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom (Oxford University Press, 2022). Among other honors, Happy Dreams of Liberty won the 2023 Frederick Douglass Book Prize and the 2023 Tom Watson Brown Book Award. Prior to joining SSAAM's team, Dr. Morales was the Manager of Exhibition Development at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in NYC. She also served as the Editor of The Princeton & Slavery Project, an investigation of Princeton University's historical ties to the institution of slavery and ongoing legacies of institutional racism, from 2017-2024.