Erica Sterling is an Assistant Professor in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia. Her research explores the intersection of African American education, philanthropy, and local and federal policy in the latter half of the twentieth century. Her forthcoming book project aims to historicize the contemporary education reform movement, examining how k-12 reformers' reliance on innovation from the 1950s to the 1990s perpetuated inequity. 

Her work has been published in the Journal of African American History and Black Perspectives, and she is the curator for a new exhibit on the history of African American schooling in the nation’s capital titled Class Action: The Fight for Equal Education in the Nation’s Capital at the DC History Center.

Sterling’s research has been supported by multiple entities, including the Center for American Political Studies and the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library, and  National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, which recently awarded her a postdoctoral fellowship for calendar year 2025.

Before joining the faculty at UVA, Sterling spent two years as a Rising Scholars Postdoctoral Fellow in the history department. Sterling earned her BA in history and psychology from Emory University, and her MA and PhD in history from Harvard University in 2022.