A historian of the 19th and 20th-century United States and the Caribbean, Shelby Sinclair specializes in the history of U.S. empire, military occupation, visual culture, gender, labor and resistance. Her current book project uses a broad range of archival material to investigate women’s lives during the 20th-century U.S. military occupation of Haiti (1915-1934). 

Sinclair’s work has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Mellon Foundation, the American Historical Association, the Social Sciences Research Council, the Coordinating Council of Women Historians, the National Humanities Center and other organizations. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender, and the Black International and The Caribbean Review of Gender Studies. She is also an award-winning mentor and educator. 

A Presidential Fellow, Sinclair earned her Ph.D. in history, African American studies and gender and sexuality studies from Princeton University. She also holds an M.A. in history from Princeton and a B.A. (with honors) in comparative ethnic studies and history from Stanford University, where she was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow. Prior to joining UVA’s faculty, Sinclair was the Thurgood Marshall Postdoctoral Fellow in African & African American Studies at Dartmouth College.  

Sinclair looks forward to introducing students to the history of race, gender and U.S. empire in the Caribbean. She will also offer more advanced seminars on Black women’s history and critical archival methods.