Marcia Chatelain is a Professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University. In 2021, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History for her book Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America. She is also the creator of the Ferguson Syllabus social media campaign and the author of South Side Girls: Growing up in the Great Migration.

Marcia Chatelain grew up in Chicago, Illinois. She graduated from the University of Missouri in 2001, with degrees in journalism and religious studies. She then worked as the Resident Scholar at the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. Chatelain received her A.M. and Ph.D. in American Civilization from Brown University, graduating in 2008, and was awarded the University of California-Santa Barbara's Black Studies Dissertation Fellowship.

Chatelain worked as the Reach for Excellence Assistant Professor of Honors and African American Studies at the University of Oklahoma’s Honors College, before becoming a Provost's Distinguished Associate Professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University.