Skip to main content
Sarah E. Thomas
Associate Director, The Lemon Project
Email:
[[setho2]]
Office:
Earl Gregg Swem Library, Room 169b
Service:
Member, Advisory Committee; Advisory Board Member, Locating Slavery's Legacies Database
Thematic Areas of Research :
American South, Material Culture, Architectural History, Public History
Education
B.A., William & Mary
M. ARCH., University of Virginia School of Architecture
M.A., William & Mary
Ph.D., William & Mary
Biography
Sarah Thomas, a native of Front Royal, earned her doctorate in history from William & Mary. She also holds an MA in architectural history from the University of Virginia and a MA in early American history from William & Mary. She specializes in early American material culture, architectural history, and slavery and its legacies.
She has worked for the Lemon Project since 2016, first as a Lemon Project Fellow, followed by several full-time positions, including Program Manager and Associate Director. She also served as co-chair of the William & Mary's Women's Network (2020-2025) and was a member of the Staff Assembly (2020-2022). She currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Locating Slavery's Legacies Database and on the Advisory Committee at William & Mary.
Since August 2022, she has served as the editor of The Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association. She held the Andrew W. Mellon curatorial internship at Colonial Williamsburg in summer 2018 and worked as an architectural historian with Colonial Williamsburg’s Robert Carter House's "Building Detectives" program for several years. She has also worked at Monticello, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, and Historic Annapolis and has held fellowships from the Virginia Historical Society, Winterthur Museum, Colonial Williamsburg, the Society for American Period Furniture Makers, the Decorative Arts Trust, and the Early American Industries Association. She co-authored a chapter in The Routledge Companion to Public Humanities Scholarship (2024) and has published articles in The Chronicle and American Period Furniture.