Hannah Kaemmer received her PhD from Harvard University in 2024. Her research focuses on the built environments of empire and the intersection of science, environment, and architecture in the early modern period. Her first book project, Engineering Empire: Fortifications in the British Atlantic World, investigates how the construction of fortifications facilitated the consolidation of imperial administration in later seventeenth-century England. Drawing on fortification projects across the British Atlantic world, the project traces how English state officials and engineers addressed the material challenges of building in distant, diverse, and unfamiliar climates and environments. In the process, it argues, these technicians and the fortifications they constructed played a critical role in the rise of the British Empire.
Hannah’s work has appeared in Nuncius and Post-Medieval Archaeology. Her research has been supported by organizations including the U.S.-U.K. Fulbright Commission, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, the Renaissance Society of America, the Yale Center for British Art, and the North American Conference on British Studies. In 2023-2024, she was the Robert H. and Clarice Smith Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. She received an MA with distinction in the Archaeology of Buildings from the University of York and a BA in History from Williams College. Previously, she has worked in historic preservation organizations and as a consultant for nonprofit arts and cultural organizations across the U.S.