Chelsea G. Davis

Dr. Chelsea G. Davis is an Assistant Professor in the History Department at Missouri State University, specializing in modern British Empire studies with regional focuses on sub-Saharan Africa and Australia. Her research examines commodities, globalization, labor, and environmental history through the lens of colonial wine industries.

Education:

• PhD in History, George Washington University (2021)
• MA in Global/Imperial/Postcolonial History, Queen Mary University of London (2015)
• BA in History and English Professional Writing, University of Delaware (2014)

Research Interests: Dr. Davis explores how colonial wine production intersected with scientific, racial, and environmental dynamics in 19th-century British imperial contexts. Her current book project, The Empire and the Aphid: Phylloxera, Science, and Race in Britain’s Wine Industries, 1860-1910, analyzes the global impact of the phylloxera crisis on viticultural knowledge transfer across Africa, Australia, Europe, and the United States.

Teaching: Courses include Britain and the World, Drunk History: A Global History of Alcohol, and graduate seminars on race/gender in the British Empire.

Grants & Future Work: Focuses on environmental entanglements in imperial commodity chains and the role of scientific networks in colonial contexts.