Raymond Hyser

M.A., Social Sciences, University of Chicago

Contact

E-mail: rhyser@utexas.edu

Interests

Global Environmental History, History of Science, Imperialism and Colonization (Mostly British Empire), Agrarian Studies, Commodities, Knowledge Networks, Coffee Cultures, Digital Humanities

Biography

Raymond Hyser is a third-year Ph.D. student in the History Department. He holds a MA in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago, and a BA in History and Art History from the University of Virginia.

His research interests include the intertwining histories of science, agriculture, and the environment in trans-imperial spaces, particularly within the British Empire, during the nineteenth century. He also has a growing interest in world history and digital humanities. His current project, "Caribbean Ceylon: Nature, Science, and the Spread of Plantation Coffee in the Global Tropics," traces the agricultural knowledge networks of coffee cultivation between the West Indies and South Asia during the long nineteenth century.

Raymond has a special interest in digital humanities and making history more accessible to the public. He worked as the Digital Humanities Developer for Not Even Past from 2020-21. Founded in 2010 and developed by academics from the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin, Not Even Past is a digital magazine that serves as a robust platform to bring History to the public.

He also sits on the steering committee for the Beyond 2020 Living History project. Co-founded by Dr. Daina Berry and Dr. Adam Clulow from the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin, Beyond 2020 Living History is a collaborative Public History project that aims to collect and share the stories of the UT community from the Long 2020.

He has also served as a Project Associate for World History Commons, an open educational resource that boasts peer-reviewed content for world and global history teachers, scholars, and students.