Kristoffer Shields

B.A. in American Studies, Yale University; J.D., New York University School of Law; Ph.D. in History, Rutgers University.

Kris Shields is an historian and director of the Eagleton Center on the American Governor (CAG). He helps build and maintain the Center’s archives on New Jersey governors and researches and analyzes the office of the governor in a national context. He frequently writes for the Center’s website and is co-author of From Candidate to Governor-Elect: Recommendations for Gubernatorial Transitions.

Shields also teaches various first-year seminars on governors and gubernatorial elections at Eagleton as well as a special topics course in the Political Science department titled “The American Governor.” He is also a former co-instructor in the department’s “Political Campaigning” course. In addition to his work on governors, Shields has focused on 20th century U.S. legal and cultural history and is particularly interested in the cultural importance of famous trials. He is the author of “The Opposition: Labor, Liquor, and Democrats” in A Companion to Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover and is a contributor to the online American history textbook The American Yawp.

Shields previously practiced law in New York City as an associate in the real estate and litigation departments at Dechert LLP and as a media law clerk at NBC Universal. In 2012-2013, Shields was an Eagleton Fellow, placed at the State Historic Preservation Office in Trenton.