Office Hours

By Appointment

Areas of Expertise

African Diaspora, Black Liberation, Early America, Mexican Freedom, Early American Abolition, Slavery and Freedom in North America, American Slavery
Underground Railroad, Atlantic World, AfroMexico, Black Atlantic

Education

McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Postdoctoral Fellowship (2021-23)
University of Texas at Austin, Ph. D. (2021)
East Carolina University, M. A. (2015)
East Carolina University, B. A. (2012)

Dr. María Esther Hammack is a Mexican scholar and public historian whose work bridges the histories of liberation and abolition that shaped the US, Mexico, and Canada. Her first book, Channels of Liberation: Freedom Fighters in the Age of Abolition reexamines the Underground Railroad to reconsider & broaden the actors, timelines, and geographies of Black Liberation in North America through the experiences of Black Americans, principally women, who left the United States to claim freedom in Mexican spaces.

Dr. Hammack is currently Co-PI of a Humanities in Place grant from the Mellon Foundation in collaboration with the Webber Family Preservation Project in Texas and serves various national and international orgranizations in various positions. This year, 2024-2025, she received the Rodica C. Botoman Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring from the College of Arts and Sciences here at The Ohio State University.