Randy W. Roberts earned his B.A., magna cum laude, from Mansfield University in 1972, his M.A. from University of Nebraska (Omaha) in 1973 and his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University in 1978. He has been at Purdue University since 1988 and currently serves as both 150th Anniversary Professor and Distinguished Professor of History. In 2015-2016 he held the Charles Boal Ewing Chair in Military History at USMA, West Point. He is the winner of several national book awards and is a four-time nominee for the Pulitzer Prize in biography for his books on Jack Dempsey, Jack Johnson, John Wayne and Joe Louis.