Assistant professor Mattie Webb is a historian of 20th-century U.S. foreign relations and international history. Before joining VMI, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs and is currently affiliated with the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit at Rhodes University in South Africa. She received her Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Santa Barbara, supported by a Fulbright fellowship, and also holds an M.A. in Global Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a B.A. in History (summa cum laude) from North Carolina State University.

Webb’s current research examines the history of the anti-apartheid movement by exploring the impact of U.S. business reform on South African workers, particularly those employed by U.S. multinational corporations. Her first book, Shopfloor Statecraft: South African Workers & U.S. Multinational Companies During Apartheid, is under contract with Columbia University Press. Webb’s scholarship has appeared in Enterprise & Society, Cold War History, and the South African Historical Journal. She also engages public audiences, with work featured in Black Perspectives, The Washington Post, and NPR’s Marketplace.

At VMI, Dr. Webb teaches courses on the history of U.S. foreign relations, U.S. constitutional history, and the global movement against apartheid. Outside of the classroom, she is an avid marathon and ultramarathon runner.