Rebecca Herman

Rebecca Herman is an Associate Professor in the History Department at the University of California, Berkeley. As a historian of the Americas, her research spans environmental politics, US military basing in Latin America during World War II, and transnational environmental organizing in decolonizing contexts.

• Current research: Antarctic governance and sovereignty in international borderless zones
• Secondary research: Latin American engagement with sustainable development and global environmentalism in the 1980s-90s

Her work examines tensions between national sovereignty and global governance, particularly through case studies involving Argentina, Chile, and Panama. She is writing a book analyzing competing visions for Antarctica's future resource management in the context of decolonization.

50% of her recent publications focus on Latin American environmental politics, including a 2024 Environmental History article on Greenpeace's Buenos Aires office and a 2024 chapter exploring colonial legacies in Antarctic governance. Other works analyze US-Latin America relations during World War II and Cold War-era global governance frameworks.

• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship
• American Society for Environmental History Fellowship
• Hellman Fellows Program Fellowship
• Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Bernath Scholarly Article Prize Honorable Mention
• Benenson Award in the Arts
• Lewis Hine Documentary Fellowship

She received her PhD in History (2014) and MA in History (2010) from UC Berkeley, following a BA in Literature & History and Spanish from Duke University (2008). Prior to academia, she worked in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Boston on documentary and translation projects. Her research has been supported by fellowships from Social Science Research Council, Smithsonian Institution, and Council on Library and Information Resources.