Kyla Sommers has lived her entire adult life in Washington, D.C. While in graduate school, she traversed the city's diverse neighborhoods on her walks to class and wanted to learn more about her chosen home. To do so, she wrote her Ph.D. dissertation on one of the most consequential events in the city's history: the 1968 civil disturbances after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. Her work examined the role of Black political power in the nation's capital from its founding until D.C. finally received home rule in 1973. Since completing her Ph.D in 2018., Kyla has served as the editor-in-chief of the History News Network and as an adjunct history professor at the George Washington University. She is an avid Washington Nationals baseball fan, a marathon runner, and a dive bar enthusiast.