James is a scholar of the Atlantic World, especially Latin America in the colonial period. He is most interested in questions of how people created and navigated social order, focusing on the intersections between the law, social identification, and categories of difference (especially race and ethnicity). His dissertation, titled "Minting Slavery in the Colonial Andes: Race and Labor in Potosí and Lima," explores the connections between forced labor practices and race making via case studies of the mints in the two poles of Colonial Peru. James holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in International Business from Boise State University and Master of Arts in History from Florida International University.