Department of History

Sigi Macias received her B.A. in History from the College of William & Mary and the University of St Andrews. Her research interests center on the intersection between global commerce, knowledge creation, unfreedom(s), and social connections in the Atlantic World. Sigi’s past research traces the smallpox vaccine into the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata, uncovering how the region's trans-imperial commercial networks and elites' pervasive agency drove the vaccine's dissemination, which in turn legitimated the revolution and contributed to processes of state formation. She plans to continue exploring the critical histories and debates regarding slavery, medicine, and global trade in the colonial Iberian Atlantic.