Megan Jeffreys
Assistant Professor of History
Social Sciences
Dr. Megan K. Jeffreys is an Assistant Professor of History at Shawnee State University. Originally from California, she has lived and worked across the United States before settling in Ohio.
Dr. Jeffreys holds a Ph.D. in History from Cornell University, where her research focused on slavery, resistance, and community in the nineteenth-century United States. Her scholarship examines the ways enslaved people navigated and challenged systems of power, particularly through escape, legal action, and collective resistance. Most recently, her research focused on Alexandria, Virginia, exploring how local communities shaped and reshaped possibilities for freedom during the antebellum and Civil War eras.
Her work also extends into digital and public history. She has contributed to projects including Freedom on the Move, a digital database documenting runaway slave advertisement, and currently works with Shawnee State University’s Center for Public History to preserve archival collections and develop public programs that connect communities with historical research. Her scholarship has appeared in edited volumes and academic publications, and she has presented her research at conferences and digital humanities gatherings throughout the United States.
At Shawnee State, Dr. Jeffreys teaches courses in U.S. history. In class, she incorporates primary sources, digital tools, and collaborative projects into her teaching, with an emphasis on helping students engage critically with the past and understand how historical perspectives shape our understanding of the present.
Ph.D. in History from Cornell University [Ithaca, NY], December 2025
M.A. in History from Cornell University [Ithaca, NY], April 2021
M.A. in History from California State University, Long Beach [Long Beach, CA] May 2018
B.A. in History from California State University, Long Beach [Long Beach, CA], December 2013
“Fragmented Freedoms: Exploring Escape in the Digital Age,” edited by Caree Banton and Michael Pierce. Athens: University of Georgia Press, (Forthcoming, 2026).
“Freedom in Fiction: Trickster Tales and American Slavery.” In Representing Childhood and Atrocity, edited by Victoria Nesfield and Philip Smith. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2022.
“Freedom on the Move by Sea: Evidence of Maritime Escape Strategies in American Runaway Slave Advertisements.” In Sailing to Freedom: Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad, edited by Timothy Walker. Amherst, MA: UMASS Press, 2021.
“Children Are Our Past.” The Activist History Review (February 2020), https://activisthistory.com/2020/02/18/children-are-our-past/.
To Freedom and Back Conference at University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
September 2024
- Panel Presentation of “Fragmented Freedoms: Exploring Escape in the Digital Age”
Freedom on the Move Symposium at Cornell University
March 2024
- Paper Presentation of “Banded Together: Group Escape in Virginia’s Alexandria”
Sailing to Freedom Conference at the New Bedford Whaling Museum
September 2022
- Panel Presentation of “Freedom on the Move by Sea: Evidence of Maritime Escape Strategies in American Runaway Slave Advertisements”
Virtual Book Talk at Cornell University
May 2021
- Panel Discussion of Edited Volume with Contributing Authors for Sailing to Freedom: Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad
Chesapeake Digital Humanities Consortium at William & Mary College
February 2020
- Panel and Digital Humanities Presentation of "Freedom on the Move by Sea: Evidence of Maritime Escape Strategies in American Runaway Slave Advertisements”
NSF Funded University of Missouri, Columbia’s “Black Migrations Symposium”
February 2020
- Panel Presentation of "Freedom on the Move by Sea: Evidence of Maritime Escape Strategies in American Runaway Slave Advertisements.”
AHRC-Funded Workshop “Connecting Digital Histories of Fugitive Slaves”
October 2019
- Panel Presentation of "Freedom on the Move: Understanding the Developing Database”