Laura Hostetler is a professor in the Department of History in the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Her principal research interests are the history of cartography, empire, and encounters between Europe and Asia.
Her book, Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China, demonstrates how the Qing dynasty pursued its imperial ambitions by using cartography and ethnography.
[citation needed] From 2010 to 2014, Hostetler was the Chair of the UIC Department of History.
[3] Hostetler is also a Council Member for the American Historical Association.