Dr. Michelle McDonald has spent nearly three decades teaching in university settings as well as museums and historic sites. She holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan, an M.A. in Museum Studies from George Washington University, an M.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, Annapolis, and a B.A. in History from UCLA. Her work with public history institutions includes the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the American Philosophical Society. 

Dr. McDonald’s research focuses on trade and consumer behavior in the British Atlantic World, North America, and the Caribbean during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Foundation, the Harvard Business School, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the Winterthur Museum & Library.  Her most recent book is Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025). 

Dr. McDonald is on the staff of the PBS series “Drive by History” as an Academic Advisor where she researches potential subject matter and identifies scholars, and contributes to grant initiatives. She is also a frequent guest historian on the series.