Professional Background
Anne Kelly Knowles is Emerita Colonel James C. McBride Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Maine. She received her MSc and PhD degrees in geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her bachelor's degree in English from Duke University. Prior to her professorship at the University of Maine, Dr. Knowles previously held teaching positions in the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and in the geography department at Middlebury College, as well as untenured positions at Wellesley College and George Washington University.
Dr. Knowles is a historical geographer broadly interested in how visualization can support conceptualization, research, and explanation of the past. Her study of the Holocaust has involved developing datasets for spatial and temporal analysis of SS camps and Jewish ghettos in Eastern Europe, as well as a growing number of case studies that explore the geographical dimensions of human experience and the physical landscape during the years of Nazi oppression and the war.
In addition, Dr. Knowles collaborates extensively with cartographers, artists, and other scholars to develop new approaches to representing the geographic content of Holocaust testimonies and memoirs, conveying the dynamics of historical change and movement over time, and combining written and spoken text with visuals to convey the significance of the Holocaust for today’s world.
Fellowship Research
While at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as the 2026-2027 Ina Levine Invitational Scholar, Anne Kelly Knowles will be working on a book titled Where Was the Holocaust? A Narrative Atlas. She will draw upon the Museum’s large collection of Holocaust memoirs, histories, historical maps, and atlases to complete case studies of persecution, deportation, hiding, and escape across Europe. She also plans to consult the Museum’s oral history collection and materials in the International Tracing Service (Arolsen Archives) digital archive to map individuals’ trajectories through the Holocaust.
Residency Period: September 1, 2026 – May 31, 2027