Kaete O'Connell
Senior Fellow
A historian of the United States and the world, Kaete O'Connell uses food as a lens to explore the intersection of conflict and culture—how fertilizer, beer, or a presidential state dinner can reveal the workings of power. Her first book,Recipe for Democracy: U.S. Food Power, Occupied Germany, and the Origins of the Cold War (University of Virginia Press, 2026), traces how U.S. food policy helped shape the postwar order. She is currently at work on two projects: one on how presidents have wielded food as a diplomatic tool, and another on the cultural and political turning points of 1948.
O’Connell combines scholarly leadership with teaching and program development, serving as Deputy Director of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR). She has taught across history, American studies, and global affairs departments in both Germany and the United States, offering courses on U.S. food power, grand strategy, and World War II. Before joining 水多多导航, she was Assistant Director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at Yale University.
Her work has been supported by the Leibniz Institute of European History, the German Historical Institute, the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, and several U.S. presidential libraries. In 2024, O'Connell was named a WWII Emerging Scholar by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. She earned her PhD from Temple University.
Her work has been supported by the Leibniz Institute of European History, the German Historical Institute, the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, and several U.S. presidential libraries. In 2024, O'Connell was named a WWII Emerging Scholar by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. She earned her PhD from Temple University.
