Nicholas Terpstra
{{Short description|Canadian historian and academic}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Nicholas Terpstra
| office = Provost of Trinity College, Toronto
| order = 16th
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| predecessor = Mayo Moran
| successor =
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| birth_name =
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| nationality = Canadian
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| occupation = Professor
Historian
Administrator
| website = [https://www.history.utoronto.ca/people/directories/all-faculty/nicholas-terpstra Nicholas Terpstra]
| term_start = July 1, 2024
| term_end =
| education = McMaster University (BA)
University of Toronto (MA, PhD)
}}
Nicholas Terpstra is a Canadian historian and academic.{{Cite web|url=https://www.history.utoronto.ca/people/directories/all-faculty/nicholas-terpstra|title=Nicholas Terpstra|date=November 7, 2019|website=Department of History}} He is the 16th and current provost and vice-chancellor of Trinity College, Toronto, having succeeded Mayo Moran in 2024.{{Cite web|url=https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/news/trinity-college-appoints-professor-nicholas-terpstra-provost-vice-chancellor|title=Trinity College appoints Professor Nicholas Terpstra as provost & vice-chancellor|date=May 24, 2024|website=Faculty of Arts & Science}} He has been the president of the Renaissance Society of America (2022-2024),{{cite web |title=Renaissance Society of America: Presidents |url=https://www.rsa.org/page/Presidents |website=}} editor of Renaissance Quarterly (2012-2017; 2021-2022),{{Cite web |title=Renaissance Quarterly |url=https://www.rsa.org/page/AboutRQ}} and is an internationally respected scholar of the Renaissance period.{{Cite web|url=https://www.trinity.utoronto.ca/discover/news/item/trinity-college-appoints-16th-provost-and-vice-chancellor/|title=Trinity College Appoints Professor Nicholas Terpstra as Provost & Vice-Chancellor}} As a professor of history at the University of Toronto, his research is multidisciplinary, interacting with gender, religion, economics, and more.{{Cite web |title=Nicholas Terpstra: History Department, University of Toronto |url=https://www.history.utoronto.ca/people/directories/all-faculty/nicholas-terpstra |website=}}
Academic research
Much of Terpstra’s work has been at the intersections of politics, gender, charity, and religion. Books include [https://www.history.utoronto.ca/publications/cultures-charity-women-politics-and-reform-poor-relief-renaissance-italy Cultures of Charity: Women, Politics, and the Reform of Poor Relief in Renaissance Italy] (Harvard: 2013) which won the Marraro Prize in Italian History of the American Historical Association{{Cite web |title=R. Marraro Prize in Italian History: Past Recipients |url=https://www.historians.org/award-grant/helen-howard-r-marraro-prize/#:~:text=Marraro%20Prize%20is%20one%20of,1897).}} and the Phyllis Goodhart Gordan Book Prize of the Renaissance Society of America;{{Cite web |title=The Phyllis Goodhart Gordan Book Prize: Previous Winners |url=https://www.rsa.org/page/gordanprize}} [https://www.history.utoronto.ca/publications/lost-girls-sex-and-death-renaissance-florence Lost Girls: Sex and Death in Renaissance Florence] (Johns Hopkins: 2010); [https://www.history.utoronto.ca/publications/abandoned-children-italian-renaissance-orphan-care-florence-and-bologna Abandoned Children of the Italian Renaissance: Orphan Care in Florence and Bologna] (Johns Hopkins: 2005); and [https://www.history.utoronto.ca/research-publications/faculty-publications/lost-and-found-locating-foundlings-early-modern-world Lost & Found: Locating Foundlings in the Early Modern World] (Harvard University Press: 2024).
More recent work addresses the intersection of spatial and sensory history in the early modern period, particularly as regards how different communities interacted in the early stages of global expansion and colonialism: [https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/senses-of-space-in-the-early-modern-world/BC3DC42753932160BA8E1B7AFF457A4C Senses of Space in the Early Modern World] (Cambridge University Press: 2024). This extends out of research on some of the early modern origins of the global refugee crisis, as described in [https://www.history.utoronto.ca/publications/religious-refugees-early-modern-world-alternative-history-reformation Religious Refugees in the Early Modern World] (Cambridge: 2015), and [https://www.history.utoronto.ca/research-publications/faculty-publications/global-reformations-transforming-early-modern-religions Global Reformations: Transforming Early Modern Religions, Societies, and Cultures] (Routledge: 2019).
He has also been the lead, together with [https://brocku.ca/humanities/history/faculty_2023/colin-rose/ Colin Rose] (Brock University) in digital humanities project to digitally map social and spatial relations in sixteenth century Florence, known as the [https://decima-map.net DECIMA (Digitally Encoded Census Information and Mapping Archive)]. The [https://decima-map.net/ online map] has generated a large and expanding suite of focused research projects on particular aspects of early modern urban history and is further described in [https://www.history.utoronto.ca/publications/mapping-space-sense-and-movement-florence-historical-gis-and-early-modern-city Mapping Space, Sense, and Movement in Florence: Historical GIS and the Early Modern City] (Routledge: 2016).