Dr Shaun Wallace is a Senior Lecturer in U.S. History and joined the University of Bristol in 2018.

He is a social historian of American slavery, specialising in the study of fugitive slaves in the U.S. South during the early republic. His research interests centre around agency and resistance, including Antebellum-era slave narratives and fugitive slave advertisements. His first monograph, In Pursuit of Freedom: Fugitive Slaves and Advertised Escape in the Early Republic, was published by the University of Georgia Press in May 2026.  

Shaun was awarded his PhD (ESRC) from the University of Stirling (Scotland) in 2018 before being appointed as a postdoctoral research assistant on a multi-institutional digital humanities project. His doctoral thesis examined fugitive slave advertisements in early national Georgia and Maryland, and included the development of digital humanities methodologies and a pioneering database ( the Fugitive Slave Database). The unique digital archive preserves more than 12,500 fugitive slave advertisements from Georgia, Maryland, South Carolina, and Virginia. Prior to his PhD, he completed an MRes in Historical Research and BA Hons in History. 

Shaun is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and has accrued a strong track-record of teaching excellence in higher education systems across England and Scotland since 2015. Before joining the Univeristy of Bristol, Shaun was a Teaching Assistant at the University of Stirling and a Teaching Associate at the University of Dundee.

Shaun has extensive experience of designing and delivering specialist undergraduate and postgradaute modules with a U.S. focus. He is the unit director of several modules at the University of Bristol, including most recently the final year History dissertation unit, as well as the popular Y1 unit, The American Century, and his specialist unit, Rebels, Runaways, and Revolutionaries: Agency and Slavery in the United States. 

Shaun has administrative roles within the Department of Historical Studies, School of Humanities, and wider Faculty of Arts, Law, and Social Sciences. He is the Director of Examinations (Department of History) and Head of Y3. Shaun is also a Bristol Clear Mentor, a departmental mentor (TSR/PhD), CREATE Assessor and Mentor, and a reviewer for research funding bodies and academic journals.

Shaun regularly supervises undergraduate and postgraduate research projects, including three fully-funded doctoral projects with a US focus (Ella Taviner and Will Comben, FT, with Dr David Doddington, Cardiff University; Taisha Richards, PT, with Dr Stephen Mawdsley, University of Bristol). Shaun welcomes proposals from prospective postgraduate research students with interests in the following: 

• U.S. cultural and social history
• Slavery and antislavery
• U.S. print culture and enslaved literature