Dr. Hannah Durkin is an academic with more than a decade’s expertise in Black Atlantic history. She has a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Nottingham and a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism from the University of Leeds, and she has taught at Nottingham and Newcastle Universities, as well as recently serving as a Guest Researcher at Linnaeus University in Sweden. Her knowledge has been sought out by the Alabama Historical Commission, which is working to salvage the Clotilda slave ship, and the Clotilda Descendants Association has invited her to be the keynote speaker at Africatown’s 2021 Spirit of Our Ancestors Festival. She is the recipient of more than a dozen academic prizes, including a prestigious Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship (2013–16).