James Delbourgo was born in Great Britain and educated at the University of East Anglia, Cambridge (Christ’s College) and Columbia. His research combines the history of science with imperial and global history and the history of collecting and museum studies. His first book explored the practice of bodily electrical experimentation in colonial British America and the early United States, including but moving beyond the figure of Benjamin Franklin, and assessing the larger meaning of the American Enlightenment through transatlantic and Creole scientific culture. His latest book, Collecting the World (2017), explores global natural history collecting and the career of Hans Sloane, which culminated in the foundation of the British Museum in 1753. The book examines Sloane’s career from his background in Ulster and voyage to the slave society of Jamaica to his creation of a network of collectors who gathered curiosities throughout the world, making possible the establishment of the British Museum. Delbourgo’s John Carter Brown Library exhibit on Sloane’s Jamaica voyage, entitled “Voyage to the Islands,” (2012) is viewable online.