Overview
Robert Buerglener (AM, PhD, University of Chicago) is a Research Associate in Information Science + Studies at Duke University. His scholarly interests include material culture, technology, and the built environment in the United States from the early nineteenth through the twentieth centuries. Along with university-level teaching in these fields, he has worked extensively in public history and history museums in roles ranging from volunteer docent to executive director. He also helped found and lead a consortium of historic house museums in the Chicago region.
As a Research Associate in Duke University’s Information Science + Studies program, he created and co-leads the North Carolina Lives and Legacies Project, which fosters collaboration between Duke students and community partners. This initiative brings together public history and digital storytelling to investigate previously neglected histories in Durham and beyond. The project has received generous support from Duke Libraries and the Vice Provost’s Office for Interdisciplinary Affairs.
Currently, he is co-leading research partnerships in conjunction with several North Carolina historic places to investigate their social, cultural, and environmental history. The longest-running of these collaborations centers on Bennett Place, a North Carolina state-owned historic site in Durham, NC, with the goal of telling diverse stories that recognize the site’s long history. Since the project began in 2022, associated student projects have explored subjects such as agriculture, environmental history, and monuments and memorialization. Along with student labs during the academic year, Bennett Place has served as the focus of two intensive summer student research projects, first in 2023 with the generous support of the Vice Provost’s Office for Community Affairs and Duke Libraries, then in Summer 2024 as one of the inaugural projects in Duke University’s History+ program.
Beginning in Summer 2025, North Carolina Lives and Legacies will take part in an exciting new partnership with Urban Community AgriNomics (UCAN) to research the long history of Catawba Trail Farm. Now home to UCAN’s community agriculture program focusing on food justice and access, Catawba Trail Farm was once part of Stagville Plantation in Durham County. The NCLL team will be working together with UCAN to recover and memorialize the history of enslaved people and others who lived and worked on the property. This project will take place with the support of History+ in Summer 2025 and as a Bass Connections Project, “Making Meaning at Historic Places,” during the academic year 2025-26.
In addition to his doctorate from the University of Chicago, he also holds a Certificate in Nonprofit Management from North Carolina State University.