Bio
Dr. Jorden Pitt is an Assistant Professor of History at the United States Air Force Academy. He earned his PhD in History from Texas Christian University in 2024. His research explores the intersections between modern warfare, mental health and disabilities, technology and veteran activism. In 2025, his dissertation earned the Society for Military History’s prestigious Edward M. Coffman Prize for the best dissertation in military history. In 2022-2023, the American Historical Association and NASA awarded Dr. Pitt one of its prestigious Fellowships in Aerospace History. Dr. Pitt is currently preparing his dissertation as a book manuscript and is a co-editor of an upcoming edited collection.
Education
PhD, History, TCU (2024)
Dissertation: “The Traumatic Blue Sky: The Psychological Consequences of Aerial Warfare in the Twentieth Century”
MA, History, Kansas State University (2019)
BA, History, University of Wyoming (2015)
Professional Experience
Assistant Professor, Department of History, United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado (2025-Present)
Instructor, Department of History, United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado (2023 – 2025)
Graduate Instructor of Record, Department of History, TCU, Fort Worth, Texas (2022)
Graduate Student Representative, the Society of Military History (2023-2025)
Honors & Awards
Society for Military History, Edward M. Coffman First Manuscript Prize (2025)
United States Air Force Academy, Dean of the Faculty, Civilian Category III of the Fourth Quarter (2024)
The American Historical Association and National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Fellowship in Space Technology (2022-2023)
The Clark-Yudkin Research Fellowship – The Friends of the Air Force Academy Library (2023)
Boller Dissertation Fellowship, TCU (2022-2023)
Research and Scholarly Interests
Military History
War & Society
Aerospace and Technology
Political and Diplomatic History
Publications
“Mobilizing for the Mind: Veteran Activism and the National Mental Health Act of 1946,” The Journal of Policy History, 36, no. 2 (Spring 2024)
“Staleness: The Psychological Consequences of Aerial Combat in World War I,” The American Historical Association’s Perspectives Daily, November 9, 2023.
Rebecca Schwartz Greene, Breaking Point: The Ironic Evolution of Psychiatry in World War II, on H-War via H-Net, November 2023, https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=58761.
Dillon J. Carroll, Invisible Wounds: Mental Illness and Civil War Soldiers, in the US Military History Review 8, no. 1 (October 2022): 53-54.
Steven Paget, Editor, Allies in Air Power: A History of Multinational Air Operations, in the Journal of Military History 86, no. 1 (January 2022): 197-198.