About

My name is Grace Mallon, and I am currently the Kinder Junior Research Fellow (postdoc) at Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute. I received my doctorate from Oxford in December 2021. My dissertation asked how the governments of the American states responded to the implementation of the U.S. Constitution after 1789, how they interacted with the federal government, and how the creation of the new federal system changed how they governed. It highlighted the significance of intergovernmental relations – negotiations between the state and federal governments – for shaping policy at the national and state levels and for instilling the U.S. Constitution with meaning in the founding era. My broader research interests include the history of the U.S. Constitution and of law, politics, and government between the American Revolution and the American Civil War. I am also keenly interested in comparative constitutionalism; in the history of nationalism; in modern European history, especially Germany; and in the evolution of historical theories and methodologies across time.

I was born and brought up in London, and am a British citizen. Before embarking on my doctoral research, I earned a BA in History and a MSt in U.S. History from Oxford, where I was a member of University College. After graduating with my BA, I was closely involved with the creation of a digital model of the 1787 Constitutional Convention at the Quill Project at Pembroke College. As a graduate student, I co-founded the Oxford Early American Republic Seminar, which is based at the Rothermere American Institute. I have co-authored an article on constitutional history and digital methods; published book reviews in Reviews in History and Publius: The Journal of Federalism; and written a number of op-eds for the Washington Post Made by History section. I host Oxford’s Conventions podcast and have been a guest presenter for The Last Best Hope? podcast at the Rothermere American Institute, alongside other podcast appearances.

My current research projects include an article manuscript on Jonathan Elliot’s Debates in American constitutional culture since the 1820s, two essays on the invention of American intergovernmental relations in the founding era, and a book manuscript based on my dissertation.

My full CV is available here: Grace Mallon CV

To contact me, please email grace.mallon@rai.ox.ac.uk. You can also follow me on Twitter and on Instagram.