Assistant Professor Matthew Jacobs received his Ph.D. in 2002 in U.S. History with a specialty in Foreign Relations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, his M.A. in 1996 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his B.A. in 1993 from Cornell University. He joined the University of Florida Department of History as Assistant Professor in 2003 after teaching as an adjunct for the Department for two years. He is currently revising his dissertation into a book-length manuscript, tentatively titled Imagining the Middle East and is completing an article investigating the ways in which U.S. policy makers and Middle East specialists in academia, business, and the government understood Islam and its role in the post-World War II Middle East. He teaches courses on U.S. foreign relations, U.S. history more broadly, and world history.
Professor Jacobs serves as one of the Department of History's major advisors, and also works to expand departmental offerings in the field of world history. He is also a member of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), and of the World History Association.
