Jana Lipman

Jana Lipman is an Associate Professor of History at Tulane University’s School of Liberal Arts. She specializes in U.S. foreign relations, empire studies, and Caribbean and Cuban history. Her prize-winning 2009 book Guantánamo: A Working-Class History between Empire and Revolution redefined understandings of U.S. military bases as sites of labor and power. Lipman has held roles including advisor to the Guantánamo Public Memory Project and Harvard University guest commentator on American Studies.

Education: B.A. in History from Brown University (1996), M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in History from Yale University (2001–2006). Languages include Spanish, French, and Creole.

Research interests span U.S. imperialism, labor networks, refugee policies, and transnational migration. Notable projects include co-editing Making the Empire Work: Labor and U.S. Imperialism (2015) and organizing exhibitions on Cuba and human rights. She mentors graduate students in topics like U.S.-Cuban relations, Puerto Rican hurricane relief, and Latin American Cold War economic ties.

• Recent publications analyze Vietnamese Amerasians, Hong Kong migration activism, and refugee camp histories.
• Awards include the Constance Rourke Essay Prize and Taft Prize in Labor History.

Lipman’s work bridges academic research with public engagement, exemplified by her leadership in the Guantánamo Public Memory Project’s 2014 Tulane exhibition.