Dr. Robin McDowell is the History Design Studio Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.
Her work explores historical dimensions of environmental racism and visions for environmental justice for Black communities. Through narratives of south Louisiana wetlands, sugar plantations, oil fields, and salt mines, her work demonstrates how racial, environmental, and economic encounters in these spaces shaped conditions of Black life. Her first book project, Swamp Capitalism: The Roots of Environmental Racism, is a history of bonds between race and environment on a geologic timescale.
Her transdisciplinary research methodology draws on archives, oral histories, earth sciences, graphic design, and multimedia art making. She is a member of Black Louisiana History Incubators in the Diaspora Solidarities Lab, co-hosted by Johns Hopkins University and Michigan State University.
She holds a Ph.D. in African and African American Studies and an M.A. in History from Harvard University, an M.F.A. in Design from the University of Texas at Austin, and a B.A. in Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania.
Other Affiliations
The Louisiana Museum of African American History An educational, historical and research organization and museum that focuses on the struggles of Africans and African American people
The Commonwealth Project A new model for universities to engage with social problems through mutuality, service and collaboration. Taking root in the Midwestern region of St. Louis, professors and students cooperate with cultural producers, activists, attorneys and local politicians on community-led justice initiatives and historical research.
Full CV available upon request.
Photo Credit: Sean Garcia