Anne Kelly Knowles

Anne Kelly Knowles is the McBride Professor of History at the University of Maine, Department of History. Previously, she taught at Middlebury College (2002–2015) and the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (1993–1997). Her research focuses on historical geography, GIS applications in history, the Holocaust, and 19th-century U.S. economic landscapes. She holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1993).

Her work bridges historical inquiry with digital tools, notably through projects like the Holocaust Geographies Collaborative. Key contributions include Geographies of the Holocaust (2014) and Mastering Iron: The Struggle to Modernize an American Industry, 1800–1868 (2013). She has pioneered methods in Historical GIS (HGIS), emphasizing spatial analysis for understanding historical patterns and events.

Awarded the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award (2012) and the Distinguished Historical Geographer honor (2014), Knowles has led major grants including a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Digital Humanities Advancement Grant for the Holocaust Ghettos Project (2018–2022). Her TED-Ed talk on reimagining Gettysburg highlights her ability to make complex spatial history accessible.

• Grants: NEH Digital Humanities grants (2016, 2018–2022), Guggenheim Fellowship (2017), NSF Collaborative Research (2008–2011).
• Labs/Teams: Co-founder of the Holocaust Geographies Collaborative; collaborator on the Holocaust Ghettos Project.