Teresa Blue Holden received her PhD in American Studies from St. Louis University in 2005. She received her MA in psychological counseling from the University of Notre Dame in 1985 and her BA in English education with a French education minor from Asbury College, Wilmore, Kentucky, in 1984. There she was a magna cum laude graduate, and the 1984 Outstanding Education Major. As a graduate assistant at St. Louis University, Teresa initiated service learning in the American Studies department and served on the university’s Service Learning Advisory Council. She also taught in the American Studies and Political Science departments and was inducted into the Jesuit Honor Society, Alpha Sigma Nu. In 2003 she received the St. Louis University Dissertation Fellowship and the Mary Louise Adams Endowed Dissertation Fellowship, for the best dissertation proposal presented by a woman at St. Louis University. Both fellowships underwrote research she conducted on Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin.

Teresa currently teaches across a variety of disciplines at Greenville College, where she makes her home in the History/Political Science Department. In 2007 Greenville College awarded her the Reinhard Fellowship which allowed her to continue her research about Ruffin. Holden has worked in education throughout her 25-year career, teaching at the middle school, secondary school, and college levels and working as a counselor for high school and college students.

Teresa has participated in panels at the Organization of American Historians, the Social Science History Association, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Conference on Women’s Health. In 2007, she presented at one of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s commemorations of the founding of Jamestown, called “America’s 400th Anniversary: Voices from Within the Veil,” held at Norfolk State University, Norfolk, Virginia.