Robin Mitchell is the College of Arts and Sciences Endowed Professor and an associate professor in the History Department with an affiliation with the Department of Africana & American Studies, the Department of Global Gender & Sexuality Studies, and at the Gender Institute at the University of Buffalo. She also serves on the Executive Committee (ex-officio), Graduate Committee (chair), Scheduling Committee, and the Diversity Committee (ex-officio). She received her master’s degree in Late Modern European History from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and her doctorate in Late Modern European History from the University of California, Berkeley, with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Her dissertation investigated the correlation between representations of black women in France and the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution.

In addition to numerous published journal articles, Professor Mitchell’s first book, entitled VÉNUS NOIRE: Black Women & Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France was published with University of Georgia Press in January of 2020. It was named by the African American Intellectual History Society as one of "The Best Black History Books of 2020,” and by The Guardian as one of “The Best Books About Sex” in 2021.

Robin’s forthcoming book will be the first biography of Suzanne Simone Baptiste, also known as Madame Toussaint Louverture, a heretofore neglected yet influential figure in the history of Blackness in Europe. This biography will be published with Princeton University Press. She is also working on a graphic history of Suzanne with artist Jessi Ujazi.