Hello! I’m Robert Suits, a Lecturer in Environmental History at University College London. Before that, I studied at the University of Chicago and worked at the University of Calgary and the University of Edinburgh. My work focuses on energy, climate, and labor. My first book, The Hobo: A History of America’s First Climate Migrants, explores how migrant work in the industrial United States developed in response to energy transitions and climate disasters; I am also the lead researcher on a wide-ranging digital history project exploring energy transitions across U.S. history. You can find links to both of these projects in the ‘Historical Writing’ section of this website.
My second academic project—still prospective—explores domestic labor, settler colonialism, and the origins of high energy society. I am also working on a wider ranging book about energy across U.S. history.
Robert Suits 