Emily Needham is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at the University of Virginia and is broadly interested in US transnational history, 20th Century Central European history, and global decolonization. Her dissertation explores divided Berlin as a site of negotiation between competing visions of freedom during the Cold War and decolonization. She examines how East and West German and US diplomacy projects framed the city’s division in postcolonial states, and traces how anticolonial and civil rights activists and artists encountered the divided city on their own terms. 

Her research has been supported by DAAD, the Harry Ransom Center, and the Rockefeller Archive Center. She previously earned an M.A. in history from the University of Virginia and a B.A. in history from the Ohio State University.