Elaine Carey is professor of history and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Oakland University in Rochester, MI. She is the author of Plaza of Sacrifices: Gender, Power, and Terror in 1968 Mexico (2005) and the award-winning Women Drug Traffickers: Mules, Bosses, and Organized Crime (2014). She is also co-editor with Andrae Marak of Smugglers, Brothels, and Twine: Transnational Flows of Contraband and Vice in North America (2011) and the editor/author of the textbook Protests in the Streets: 1968 Across the Globe (2016).
As a historian who researches crime and human rights, she has served as an expert witness in courts across the United States, and she has consulted for radio, film, television, archives, libraries, and museums. She is a recipient of numerous grants including funding from Fulbright–García Robles, National Endowment for the Humanities, National History Center, Library of Congress, and the Teagle Foundation. From 2013–16, she was the vice president for the Teaching Division of the American Historical Association.