Rate My Professor Oluwaṣeun Williams

Dr. Oluwaseun Williams serves as Assistant Professor (Ad Astra Fellow) in One Health in the School of History at University College Dublin, a position he assumed in September 2025. He holds a PhD in International History and Politics from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, which he completed in February 2025 with the distinction summa cum laude, avec felicitations du jury. His doctoral thesis, titled “The Meat of the Story: Cattle Capitalism and Veterinary Public Health in Colonial Nigeria,” drew on extensive archival research from institutions in Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and digital repositories to investigate the livestock sector in Nigeria’s colonial economy, the impact of colonial public health systems on food cultures, interactions between colonial veterinary science and indigenous health practices, and the roles of human and nonhuman actors in nutritional and veterinary public health. Prior to his doctoral studies, Williams pursued degrees in History and Strategic Studies at the University of Lagos between 2009 and 2017.

A social historian of science, public health, and political economy, Williams specializes in veterinary public health history, colonial Nigerian history, environmental history, urban history, and One Health perspectives emphasizing multispecies interconnections. His pioneering work constitutes the first comprehensive study of veterinary public health history in British West Africa, revealing how colonial nutrition and veterinary sciences served imperial control and capitalist extraction while highlighting the contributions of indigenous Fulani pastoralists and African personnel. Williams has received major awards including the 2025 Pierre du Bois Prize and Henry Sigerist Prize for his PhD thesis, as well as First Prize in the 2024 Early Career Scholar Award competition. Key publications include “A ‘Meat-Hungry’ People: Nutrition Science and the Colonial Discovery of Animal-Protein Malnutrition in Nigeria” (2025), “Animality and Colonial Subjecthood in Africa: The Human and Nonhuman Creatures of Nigeria” by Saheed Aderinto (book review, 2023), “A Protracted Lockdown: The WHO Archives and Research on the History of International Public Health Today” (2022), “Creativity and Social Identity in Urban Transport: Tricycle Decoration in Kano Metropolis” (2019), and “Life in a Religious Space: The Case of Gospel Town, Ibadan” (2017). At UCD, he teaches modules such as HIS42940 and DSCY10120, supervises funded PhD studentships in One Health and public health history in West Africa, and engages in public outreach through podcasts and academic presentations.