Theresa Levitt is Professor of History and joined the faculty at the University of Mississippi in 2002. She received her B.S. in physics from MIT, a MA in History from Iowa State University, and a PhD from Harvard. Her publications include The Shadow of Enlightenment: Optical and Political Transparency in France 1789-1848 (Oxford University Press, 2009) and A Short Bright Flash: Augustin Fresnel and the Birth of the Modern Lighthouse (W.W. Norton, 2013 and 2015). She was the recipient of a National Science Foundation grant and a Fulbright IIE Graduate Research Fellowship, among other honors. She is the author of numerous articles and papers on a variety of scientific subjects.