Patricia West is co-director (with Ivan Steen) of the Center for Applied Historical Research. She is also a curator for the National Park Service at Martin Van Buren National Historic Site and an adjunct professor in the public history graduate program at the University at Albany. Her doctorate is in United States History from Binghamton University and she is the author of Domesticating History: The Political Origins of America's Historic House Museums (Smithsonian, 1999).