Kevin McPartland is a public historian and a specialist on the South and the American Civil War. He has worked on several public history projects using a variety of methods, including digital work with the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition and oral history work at the University of Cincinnati. At Mizzou, he has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in public history, including one focused on Mizzou's history. In 2024, he founded and hosted the Columbia Cemetery United States Colored Troops Memorial as part of Columbia's Juneteenth Celebrations. 

His academic interests span the US and the world in the 20th century, indigenous history, the US Civil War, and the American South. His current research project is an examination of Confederate nationalism in the Southern press. It investigates how local editors crafted a nationalistic spirit at the community level during the Civil War, and ultimately how that spirit crumbled under various pressures. In addition, he has published an award-winning work, "He Has Ever Been Considered, a Good and True Hearted Citizen": Neighborhood and Community in the Wadlington Case," in the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, as well as numerous book reviews and podcast interviews.