Jessi Gilchrist is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the King's Centre for the Study of Intelligence where her research explores the relationship between empire, intelligence, and border security. She completed her PhD in the Department of War Studies in spring 2026 supported by doctoral fellowships with the Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and the Society for Intelligence History.

During her PhD, she also held an Associate Fellowship with John's Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS Europe) in Bologna while she carried out archival fieldwork in Italy during the 2024-5 AY. In autumn 2025, she was appointed as a Thornely Early Career Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research (IHR), contributing to the IHR's fellows' seminar series, the Britain At Home and Abroad seminar series, and the History & Policy network. As a PhD student, Jessi also founded the King's Trauma-Centred Study Group and continues to coordinate monthly  workshops, trainings, and public events that engage with the theme of trauma as both a research focus and a lived-experience of researchers. 

Jessi previously worked as an analyst in the Geopolitics and National Security Learning Program at the Canada School of Public Service where she specialised on files relating to extremism within the Canadian national security environment. 

 

Current Project:

 “Fractious Frontiers: British Egypt, Italian Libya, and the Making of an International Legal Order, 1907-1951.”

Her current book project focuses on the Libyan-Egyptian colonial frontier as a point of departure to explore how the British and Italian empires attempted to govern this inter-imperial border; how ideology shaped imperial policy and practice towards colonial border security; and what the experience of this colonial border tell us about the role of international law in mediating, formalizing, and entrenching the imperial system within the twentieth-century global order. This project seeks to demonstrate that an international legal order developed in tandem with empire as the British and Italians collaborated and competed with one another in an effort to determine solutions to the colonial problems that they faced at this inter-imperial border from the initial conquest of each territory in the 1910s to formal decolonisation in the 1950s. In doing so, her project aims to offer a new interpretation of how empire really worked and why it remained so durable over the course of the twentieth century.

• History of empire

• Borderlands, frontiers, and migration

• Colonial intelligence

• Anti-colonial resistance

• Italian Fascism

• Middle East & North Africa 

 

Recent Publications:

Peer-Reviewed Publications

• Jessi A. J. Gilchrist, ‘A Red Sea ‘Magna Carta’? Britain, Italy, and the Quest for Order in South-West Arabia, 1911-1927.’ In Justin Olmstead and James Tallon (eds.), Britain and Imperial Rivalry in the Red Sea. On contract with Palgrave MacMillan, in-press 2027. URL: https://link.springer.com/book/9783032349989
• Jessi A. J. Gilchrist, ‘Peace Talks and Imperial Stocks: what bound Fascist Italy’s early diplomacy to postwar Europe.’Diplomacy and Statecraft 37, no. 1 (2026): 78-106. https://doi.org/10.1080/09592296.2026.2616911 
• “‘The Veil of Mystery:’ Colonial Intelligence in the Arabian Peninsula.” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 3 August 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2023.2240093
• “Sharing Empire: Great Britain, Fascist Italy, and (Anti-)Colonial Intelligence Networks in the Palestine Mandate, 1933-1940.” Intelligence and National Security, Published Online: 9 August 2022. https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2022.2104507
• “‘Clouds of mutual suspicion’: Neville Chamberlain and Appeasement in the Mediterranean.” The International History Review, Published Online: 14 July 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2021.1925945

Book Chapters

• ‘Bombs, Camps, and Fences: Colonial Frontier Management after the First World War.’ In Mark Condos and Reeju Ray (eds.), Colonial Violence. On contract with Routledge, forthcoming 2026.

Book Reviews

• Jessi A. J. Gilchrist, ‘Aidan Forth’s Camps: a global history of mass confinement.’ International Affairs 101, no. 3 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiaf080
• Jessi A. J. Gilchrist, ‘Frederick Cooper’s and Jane Burbank’s Post-Imperial Possibilities.’ International Journal 80, no.1 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1177/00207020251320951
• Jessi A. J. Gilchrist, ‘Calder Walton’s Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West.’ International Affairs 100, no. 3 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiae085
• "Book Review: Jonathan Wyrtzen’s Worldmaking in the Long Great War.” Diplomacy and Statecraft, https://doi.org/10.1080/09592296.2024.2303865
• “Book Review: Caroline Elkins’ Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire.” International Journal, 31 August 2023. https://doi.org/10.1177/00207020231198201
• “Book Review: Valerie McGuire’s Italy’s Sea: Empire and Nation in the Mediterranean, 1895-1945.” Modern Italy, 14 December 2022. https://www.doi.org/10.1017/mit.2022.58
• “Book Review: Vanda Wilcox’s The Italian Empire and the Great War.” International Journal, https://doi.org/10.1177/00207020221097992

Media Articles

• “Putin’s New “New Imperialism” in the War Against Ukraine,” Centre for Grand Strategy Newsletter, 12 July 2023.
• “The Boeing 737 MAX Settlement: An American ‘Solution’ to an International Disaster.” Duck of Minerva, August 2022.
• “Deconstructing Dominant Narratives Through Progressive Metal,” ActiveHistory, December 2020.
• “Could Covid Cure Classical Music?” ActiveHistory, July 2020.

 

Research centres and groups:

• King's Centre for the Study of Intelligence 
• Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War 
• Trauma-Centred Study Group
• Borders & Migration Research Group