Cecelia Tichi’s scholarship concerns US environmentalism, the social history of technology, and more recently the Progressive Era, notably in Civic Passions: Seven Who Launched Progressive America (And What They Teach Us). She is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at Vanderbilt University and is also Professor of American Studies. In 2009 she was awarded the Jay B. Hubbell medal for lifetime achievement in American Literature.