PhD Candidate
North America
Kate Kuisel is a historian of the North American built environment, centering on fireproofing technology in Los Angeles's postwar landscape. Her dissertation, 'The Architecture of Risk: Fireproofing Los Angeles from the Postwar to the Present,' dissertation seeks to uncover how methods of fireproofing Los Angeles created a cycle of risk between fire and the use of toxic “fire-resistant” building materials, where fires drove municipal policy and toxic risk emerged as collateral, and how these risks were distributed spatially across socioeconomic and racial lines. Her previous research examined the toxic capitalism of the asbestos industry, as well as understanding the fire retardant qualities the, 'magic mineral,' imparted on spatial enviornments. Outside of her research, she serves as a Community Emergency Responder as a level II CERT and is working on obtaining BLS certifications.
Research Interests
- Environmental History
- History of Technology
- Toxicity and Public Health
- History of Fire and Disaster
Awards and Fellowships:
- 2026 Trent R. Dames Civil Engineering History/Dibner Research Fellow in the History of Science and Technology at The Huntington
- 2026 Gunther Barth Fellowship for the Study of the American West
2025 J. Donald Hughes Graduate Research Fellowship-American Society for Environmental History - 2024 Leon Litwack Graduate Essay Prize for African American History-UC Berkeley History Department
Education:
B.A. History and Philosophy, University of South Carolina, 2023.
