Harry Merritt received a Ph.D. in History from Brown University in 2020. Before coming to the University of Vermont, he has also taught at Brown University, Amherst College, Wesleyan University, and Boston University. His current research has focused on the social, cultural, and political impacts of World War II on Latvia. Harry’s teaching interests include modern Russian, German, and Eastern European history (including Eastern European Jewish history), along with the histories of nationalism, fascism, genocide, and interethnic/interreligious coexistence and violence in Eastern Europe.

Harry’s most recent publication is a chapter in Defining Latvia: Recent Explorations in History, Culture, and Politics (Central European University Press, 2022). He has also had an article published in Nationalities Papers. He is currently working on a book project that considers the creation, wartime experience, and legacies of Latvian national military units that fought on opposite sides of World War II, in the Soviet Red Army and the German Waffen-SS. In 2023, Harry received an Emerging Scholars Grant from the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies in support of this research.