Dr. Megan Raby

Biography

Megan Raby is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin. She holds a Ph.D. in History of Science, Medicine, and Technology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research emphasizes transnational connections in science within Latin America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Raby's significant work includes the book 'American Tropics: Caribbean Roots of Biodiversity Science' published by University of North Carolina Press in 2017, which discusses the relationship between the history of field ecology and the expansion of U.S. hegemony in the circum-Caribbean during the twentieth century. This work was recognized with the 2019 Philip J. Pauly Prize from the History of Science Society. Currently, she is working on a biography of the influential biologist and writer Marston Bates, reflecting on his role as a critical observer of major environmental, intellectual, and cultural transformations during the 20th century Anthropocene and has been awarded the 2024 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for this project. Raby has also authored articles that have appeared in reputable journals such as Environmental History and Isis, and received the History of Science Society's 2016 Price/Webster Award for one of her articles. Before joining the University of Texas, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Institution Archives National Museum of American History.

Research Interests

Courses