Mary Koik is the director of communications for the American Battlefield Trust, working for than 15 years to tell the compelling stories of America’s past and the ongoing work to protect the sites where that history was made. For a dozen years, she has served as the editorial director of the Trust’s flagship publication Hallowed Ground. More than your typical membership magazine, each quarterly issue of Hallowed Ground features in-depth military history features penned by leading scholars. Under her direction, the title has won top honors for nine consecutive years in the APEX Awards for Publication Excellence and has been honored as a medal finalist by the international Society of Publication Designers.

You can read more about her work on Hallowed Ground at Emerging Civil War, an online community committed to promoting the “next generation” in public history. Or you can catch her on the American Battlefield Trust’s live Facebook series Zoom Goes the History, where she is a frequent contributor.

In addition to her work for the Trust, Mary has worked as an independent editor on behalf of other history-minded organizations, most notably George Washington’s Mount Vernon, assisting in the launch of its membership periodical Mount Vernon Magazine. 

Earlier in her career, she wrote for The Hartford Courant and assisted in editing and production of publications for the United Nations and the World Bank. A graduate of Georgetown University, she was the editor-in-chief of The Hoya, the student newspaper of record.