Jim Ambuske, Ph.D.

I’m currently a Historian and Senior Producer at R2 Studios, the podcast division of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. A historian of the American Revolution, Scotland, and the British Atlantic World, I completed my doctorate at the University of Virginia in 2016. I’m originally from Ohio, and a graduate of Miami University.

My work has benefited from the generosity of the Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation, the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture’s Georgian Papers Programme, and the Scholars’ Lab at UVA. Before arriving at R2 Studios, I led the Center for Digital History at Mount Vernon’s Washington Library, where I hosted the podcast Conversations at the Washington Library and co-created and co-write the narrative series, Intertwined: The Enslaved Community at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Prior to the Washington Library, I was the Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia Law Library where I co-directed the 1828 Catalogue Project and the Scottish Court of Session Project.

I’m currently at work on a book about emigration from Scotland in the era of the American Revolution as well as a chapter on Scottish loyalism during the American Revolution for a volume to be published by the University of Edinburgh Press.

When not lost in the past, you’ll often find me on the trails with my wife and two future non-historians, trying to perfect a French baguette recipe, or digging in the garden. A wee dram of Scotch whisky is likely.

Please do not use images featured on this site without written permission.