Matthew Guterl is a historian of race and nation, with a focus on United States history from the Civil War to the present. He has written four books. The first on race and the Progressive Era, the second on Southern slaveholders and the Caribbean, the third on the history of and cultural context for racial profiling, and the fourth on the life of Josephine Baker. He's also co-authored, with Caroline Levander, a book on the politics of the modern hotel. Right now, he is working on a global biography of the queer, cosmopolitan, human rights activist, Roger Casement, and a book on class-passing, cross-dressing, and race-passing.

At Brown, he teaches small and large undergraduate classes on American political and popular culture, and graduate classes on race and culture.

He earned his BA degree from Richard Stockton College of New Jersey in 1993, and Ph.D. in History from Rutgers University in 1999. Before coming to Brown, he taught at Washington State University and Indiana University. He has been awarded fellowships from the National Museum of American History, Yale University, Rice University, and the Library Company of Philadelphia. In 2010, he was the winner of the Mary C. Turpie Prize, given by the American Studies Association, for distinguished teaching, service, and program development in that field.