Brian Q. Cannon graduated from BYU with a BA in American studies in 1984. He completed an MA in history at Utah State University in 1986 and a PhD in history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1992. Since that time he has been teaching at BYU. He teaches upper division courses in the American West in the twentieth century, Utah history, and US history from 1890 to 1945. Much of his research focuses upon agricultural settlement, rural community development, and federal rural policy in the twentieth century. He has received fellowships or other awards from the Western History Association, the Agricultural History Society, the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, the Ford Foundation, and the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. He and his wife, Anna Lea, are the parents of one daughter and three sons.