Mackenzie Cooley

Mackenzie Cooley is a Ph.D. candidate in the Stanford University Department of History where she studies history of culture and science in the early modern European and Atlantic world. Her dissertation, "Animal Empire: The Perfection of Nature between Europe and the Americas, 1450-1620" traces how Renaissance Europeans and the experts they patronized sought to transform both nature and animals to fit their vision of an ideal society, making a New World.
During her time at Stanford, Cooley completed the Ph.D. minor in Feminist, Gender and Sexuality studies and acted as graduate coordinator at the Women's Community Center, where she developed new programming on Bioethics and the Gendered Body. "Beasts & Books: An Exhibition of Rare Books and Manuscripts" - curated by Cooley with the help of her students - was on display at Stanford's Green Library from April to August 2015.


Cooley is currently in Spain conducting dissertation research thanks to the support of a Fulbright Graduate Research Fellowship. Her studies have also been supported by Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Mellon Dissertation Fellowship in the Humanities on Original Sources.

Fields: Renaissance, History of Science, Early Modern, Environmental History, Gender and Sexuality, Latin America