Zachary Nowak received his PhD in American Studies from Harvard University. He had a postdoctoral teaching and research position from 2018 to 2021 in the Harvard University History Department. He currently serves as the Director of The Umbra Institute, an American study abroad program in Perugia, Italy, as well as teaching in the Harvard University Extension School.

Nowak is a scholar of the natural and built environments with an emphasis on the nineteenth-century United States. He looks for stories in history’s vacant lots, railyards, and cracks in the sidewalk. Nowak also has done and continues to do research on global food history. He’s an accomplished instructor prepared to teach global history, U.S. history surveys, historical methods courses,and courses in the environmental humanities and food studies.