Nina Halty entered the PhD program in 2017 after receiving her BA and MA from Florida Atlantic University. Her MA thesis uses the story of American slaves who escaped to Canada as a lens for understanding Anglo-American diplomatic relations, the transatlantic abolitionist movement, and changing notions of subjecthood in the British Empire during the nineteenth century. More broadly, she studies the legal and political culture surrounding slavery in North America with a particular interest in the role of slavery in American diplomacy and the formation of international law.