Olivia Durand is a historian of the nineteenth century and global history, working in the field of comparative settler studies. Her previous research partakes in the wider history of settler colonialism and diaspora studies in the long nineteenth century, by setting New Orleans and Odessa in the context of the wider historiography on booming settler cities. She has joined Freie Universität Berlin as a visiting researcher in October 2021 to worki on a book project. Durand has a DPhil in Global and Imperial History from the University of Oxford (Pembroke College), where she remains a postdoctoral associate.
She is the co-founder and director of Uncomfortable Cities, a public engagement with research organization, which has been running public lectures, walking tours, workshops, and publishing teaching and educational resources since 2018 in Oxford, Cambridge, and York.
Durand is also on the steering committee of the 'Colonial Ports and Global History' (CPAGH) interdisciplinary research network, as well as a researcher for the Institute of Historical Justice and Reconciliation (Contested Histories), and a convener of the Oxford-based Transnational and Global History Seminar. She is an alumna of the Fulbright Program (2015-2016).