Michael L. Lawson is the President of MLL Consulting, LLC., an historical and public policy consulting firm in Annandale, VA. He was formerly a partner Morgan Angel and Associates, LLC in Washington, DC. During a 20-year career in the federal government, he served as an historian for the National Park Service, the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Lawson earned bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and a doctorate in American history at The University of New Mexico. He is a three-time recipient of the South Dakota State Historical Society's Governor's Awards for History and has also been honored by the Western History Association and the Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society for his writing on Native American topics. Lawson has been a visiting lecturer at several colleges, including New York University, the College of William and Mary, the U.S. Naval Academy, and George Washington University.