Aaron D. Purcell

Aaron D. Purcell is professor and director of special collections at Virginia Tech. He earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of Tennessee, his master's of library science from the University of Maryland, College Park, and his master's degree in history from the University of Louisville. Purcell has also worked at the National Archives and Records Administration, the National Library of Medicine, and the University of Tennessee.

Purcell is an active scholar, writing in the fields of history and archives. The University of Tennessee Press published his first academic book, White Collar Radicals: TVA's Knoxville Fifteen, the New Deal, and the McCarthy Era, in 2009. Purcell is completing an edited book on New Deal and Great Depression historiography for Kent State University Press, he is the editor of The Journal of East Tennessee History, and he is finishing a book on Arthur E. Morgan, the first chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority.He has written articles on archival topics for the American Archivist, Archival Outlook, IMJ, and the Journal of Archival Organization. Purcell is an active member of the Society of American Archivists, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference, and the Southern Historical Association.