Sheena Harris Hayes is an editor, researcher, and associate professor of African American history at Auburn University. Her article, "A Woman’s Work: The Story of Cornelia Bowen and Mt. Meigs, Alabama," won the Griot Golden Pen Award for best article by the Griot scholarly journal. Hayes is also a contributor to several peer-reviewed volumes, such as Alabama Women: Their Lives and Times, which received the Alabama Historical Association’s James F. Sulzby Award for excellence in scholarship on Alabaman history. Hayes’s works also include Margaret Murray Washington: The Life and Times of a Career Clubwoman and editorial contributions for "The Black Soldiers in the War and Society" series at the University of Virginia.