Rebecca McLennan is an associate professor in the Department of History and Preston Hotchkis Chair in the History of the United States. Her research has included studies of the Bering Sea Dispute between the United States and the United Kingdom and Canada during the late 19th century. The dispute centered on claims by the United States to exclusive rights to sealing in the Bering Sea, which led to the impounding of several Canadian vessels. These claims were contested by Britain, then responsible for Canada's foreign policy, and ultimately denied in international arbitration. Professor McLennan has published several articles on the topic, including "Mare Clausum: U.S. Jurisdictional Claims in the Bering Sea, 1885-1893" in Looking for Law in All the Wrong Places (Fordham University Press, 2018) and "The Empire of Law Goes to Sea: The Bering Sea Conflict, c.1893" in Diplomatic History.
Professor McLennan obtained her Ph.D. and two master's degrees in history from Columbia University. She has been a member of the Berkeley faculty since 2003; before then, she was a professor of history and social studies at Harvard University.
