Cindy Ott is an associate professor of American Studies at Saint Louis University and the author of Pumpkin: The Curious History of an American Icon (University of Washington Press, 2012). In addition to publishing articles in the fields of environmental history, food studies, visual and material culture, and history and memory, Cindy has organized exhibitions at the Smithsonian Institution and the Museum of the Rockies, community development projects at Saint Louis University, and historic preservation projects the National Park Service. Cindy is the graphics and Gallery essay co-editor of Environmental History and a regular grant reviewer for the National Endowment for the Humanities, from which she was awarded a grant in 2006. She was a fellow at Harvard University's Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History during the academic year 2013-2014 and a visiting researcher at Stanford University's Bill Lane Center of the American West in 2012. She is currently writing a book with the working title, "Biscuits and Buffalo: Squashing Myths about Food in Indian Country" about the history of food consumption and production on reservations in the American northern Plains. She is also working on an article about the Miss Indian America pageant, which took place in Sheridan, Wyoming from 1952 to 1983.
