Gerrit J. Dirkmaat is an assistant professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University. He received his PhD in American History from the University of Colorado in 2010 where he studied nineteenth-century American expansionism and foreign relations. His dissertation was titled “Enemies Foreign and Domestic: US Relations with Mormons in the US Empire in North America, 1844–1854.”
He worked as a historian and writer for the Church History Department from 2010 to 2014 with the Joseph Smith Papers Project. Prior to his work at the Church History Department, he served as the senior assistant editor of Diplomatic History from 2003 to 2009. He currently serves as Editor of the academic journal Mormon Historical Studies, published by the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation, as the Co-Research Director for the Religious Studies Center, on the Executive Council for the Brigham Young Center, and on the Church History editorial board for BYU Studies. He is the co-author, along with Michael Hubbard MacKay, of From Darkness Unto Light: Joseph Smith’s Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon, published by Religious Studies Center at Brigham Young University and Deseret Book, 2015.
He and his wife Angela have four children. He is very personable and a great teacher. You will love traveling with Gerrit.
