Deborah Neill

Deborah Neill is an Associate Professor of Modern European History at York University, specializing in European imperialism in Africa, colonial medicine, and the global impact of the World Wars. Her research examines intersections of medicine, commerce, and colonial governance.

Educational background:

• Ph.D. in History from University of Toronto
• M.A. in History from University of Toronto
• B.A. in History from University of Waterloo

Her current projects investigate John Holt & Co.'s commercial expansion in French Equatorial Africa, Spanish Guinea, and German Kamerun (1880s-1918), analyzing business-government relations and African-European labor dynamics. A parallel research stream explores African intermediaries during WWI in Cameroon, including telegraphers, guides, and spies supporting Allied forces.

Publications include the monograph 'Networks in Tropical Medicine' (Stanford, 2012), tracing the development of tropical medicine through transnational knowledge exchanges. Forthcoming work examines commodity trading firms during imperial expansion and wartime disruption.

Teaching encompasses undergraduate and graduate courses on modern European imperialism, colonial medicine, the World Wars, Holocaust studies, and globalization. She co-organizes the Joint York-University of Toronto Seminar in French History and coordinates workshops on German colonial capitalism.