Burdin and Helen Burdin/BORSF Endowed Professor in Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She is a graduate of Tulane University, receiving her Ph.D. in History in 2013 and M.A. in History in 2010. Skilton specializes in the history of disaster and human response to it. Her current book project, Tempest: Hurricanes & American Culture, reviews the history of the hurricane naming system, and it was developed during her graduate work at Tulane.