Jennifer Stevens, Ph.D. – Owner and Consultant

Dr. Stevens, Principal and President of Stevens Historical Research Associates, has worked as a professionally trained historian since 1993. Her areas of specialty include environmental history, 19th and 20th century land, water and transportation history, urban planning, U.S. business history, and research in support of commemorative events.

Dr. Stevens’ research has been instrumental to many of her clients’ successes. Her work has required extensive research in archives across the U.S. She has deep and wide-ranging experience in the National Archives branches around the country, as well as state, local, and corporate archives. She has performed research at state archives in Oregon, California, Arizona, Idaho, New Mexico, and Wyoming, corporate archives across the country, and in the following collections at the National Archives: U.S. Geological Survey; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; U.S. Bureau of Reclamation; Bureau of Indian Affairs; U.S. Secretary of the Interior; U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Dr. Stevens has served as an Expert Witness in multiple environmental lawsuits, writing expert reports and testifying on behalf of her clients. She has uncovered many original documents that have helped clients prove:

  • Historic access rights on federal lands;
  • Historic mining rights;
  • Historic character of watercourses;
  • Historic water use, such as crop types or acreage watered;
  • Liability in CERCLA negotiations; and
  • Original intent behind contracts and legislation.

Dr. Stevens completed her Ph.D. in 2008 at the University of California, Davis. In addition to running her consulting business, she is very active in local land use and other issues. She served for five years on Boise’s Historic Preservation Commission, with three years as its chair, and has served on Boise’s Planning and Zoning Commission for more than five years, with two years as its chair. She teaches classes at Boise State University, where she is a Professor of the Practice; she is also Affiliate Faculty in the Department of History at the University of Washington. Dr. Stevens currently serves on the Idaho State Historical Records Advisory Board, the Consultant’s Committee of the National Council on Public History, and the Public History Committee of the Western History Association. One of her essays on the history of urban planning in Portland, Oregon recently appeared in an anthology published by Routledge.

She and her husband John have two children whom they adore and love to take hiking and exploring in the wild lands of Idaho.