Kat Boniface

(Travel Fellow, 2020-21)

Kat Boniface

Travel Fellow

(Re)Producing Breed

Kat Boniface is a PhD student at the University of California, Riverside, studying horses and horsemanship in early modern Europe. She earned her MA in medieval history, with Distinction, from California State University, Fresno in 2015. Her Master’s thesis was on the social symbolism of the horse, and the disconnect from its practical value that developed in the Late Middle Ages. She graduated from Stony Brook University, in New York, in 2013 with honors in history and a second major in English, both focusing on medieval Europe. She is the founder and current President of the Equine History Collective.

Prior to returning to academics, she earned a trade degree in horse training from Meredith Manor International Equestrian Centre, along with a teaching certification, and ran an equine program in Maryland. Current research areas include medieval and early modern equine nutrition, changing definitions of “humane” treatment in animal training, and genetic history. Her dissertation, “Manufacturing the Horse,” examines how the heritability of traits in livestock was understood prior to Mendel and Darwin.