Emily Brownell

I am a Senior Lecturer in Environmental History at the University of Edinburgh. Previously, I was an Associate Professor of History at the University of Northern Colorado and a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.

My book, Gone to Ground: A History of Environment & Infrastructure in Dar es Salaam, was published in 2020.

More recently, I edited Grasping Soil: A Syllabus and Essays for the Environmental Humanities (White Horse Press, 2026). There is an accompanying website with teaching material, essays, and further readings.

My research and teaching interests include environmental history, African history, urban history, and science and technology studies.

You can see some of my writing here.