Alice Kiwako Ashiwa is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in modern Japanese art and politics.

Field of Study: Japan

Advanced to Candidacy

Current/Former HGSA Member

My research looks to understand cultural and legal approaches to violence and feud in the Medieval Mediterranean. I graduated with a BA in History with a minor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies from University of San Diego in 2018.

Field of Study: Medieval

Advisor(s): Jessica Goldberg

Current/Former HGSA Member

Michael Buse is a PhD student at UCLA researching U.S. empire, cultural history, and settler colonialism in California. He is also interested in Russian colonialism and anticolonial movements around the Pacific. 

Field of Study: United States

I am currently a PhD candidate with a focus on modern Central American history.

Field of Study: Latin America

Advisor(s): Robin Derby, Fernando Perez-Montesinos, & Katherine Marino

Advanced to Candidacy

Jeanette's research focuses on histories of the African Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean. Her dissertation centers the historical intersections between Black radicalism, political economy, and popular religions

Field of Study: Latin America

Advisor(s): Robin Derby

Field of Study: Europe

Advisor(s): Caroline Ford

I am a historian of South Asia and my research interests broadly encompass the modern period particularly the late colonial state and society, and the anticolonial movement.

Field of Study: South and Southeast Asia

Advisor(s): Professor Vinay Lal

Field of Study: Latin America

My research centers around the labor history of California's prison system.  From prison guards to convict labor to free workers, my work focuses on the various ways in which people's working lives shaped and were shaped by the trajector

Field of Study: United States

My research explores the relationships between gender, property, and women's position in the family in late Ottoman Beirut.

Field of Study: Middle East

Advisor(s): Professor James Gelvin

Advanced to Candidacy

Current/Former HGSA Member

Jacob is a historian of science and medicine, and the United States.

Field of Study: Science, Medicine, and Technology

Advisor(s): Theodore Porter, Soraya de Chadarevian, Michael Meranze, Amir Alexander and Mary Terrall

Advanced to Candidacy

Current/Former HGSA Member

Sara is a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at UCLA, in the field of Latin American history.

Field of Study: Latin America

Advisor(s): Dr. Katherine Marino and Dr. Fernando Pérez-Montesinos

I am a PhD student interested in the social, political, and intellectual history of twentieth century South India, with particular interest in anticolonial movements, the Telangana Rebellion, and the Dravidian movement.

Field of Study: South and Southeast Asia

Advisor(s): Vinay Lal

Current/Former HGSA Member

Field of Study: Middle East

Current/Former HGSA Member

Field of Study: Africa

Lily Hindy is a PhD student in history at UCLA whose research focuses on issues of national identity in the modern Middle East, specifically looking at the relationship between the Iraqi government and the Kurdish population of Ira

Field of Study: Middle East

Advisor(s): James Gelvin

Field of Study: Japan

My research interests include histories of modern Egypt, Pan-Africanism, Afro-Arab anticolonial solidarities, and Third World internationalism. 

Field of Study: Middle East

Richard Ibarra is interested in the construction of community (particularly in urban contexts), the extension of communal memory across time and space, and the social and cultural underpinnings of integration and naturalization.

Field of Study: Medieval

Advisor(s): Teofilo Ruiz, Rowan Dorin (History, Stanford), Stefania Tutino, Jessica Goldberg, Meredith Cohen (Art History), Celine Dauverd (History, Univeristy of Colorado-Boulder)

Advanced to Candidacy

Field of Study: United States

Rachel is a PhD student in History at UCLA, where she works on Latin American and Jewish history. Her current research focuses on crypto-Jewish memory practices in New Mexico and Mexico from the late 15th century to the 20th century.

Field of Study: Jewish, Field of Study: Latin America

Andrew is a PhD candidate researching the intertwined histories of empire, urban development, and social movements in California.

Field of Study: United States

Advisor(s): Robin D.G. Kelley (Chair), Peter James Hudson, Toby Higbie, Ananya Roy

Advanced to Candidacy

- South Asian Vernacular Historiography. 

- Histories of colonial philology. 

- Histories of ethnicitiy. 

Field of Study: South and Southeast Asia

Advisor(s): Dr. Vinay Lal

Field of Study: Jewish

Field of Study: Japan

Advisor(s): William Marotti

Field of Study: Africa, Field of Study: Middle East

Advisor(s): James Gelvin (Chair), Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Aomar Boum, Miloš Jovanović, Isa Blumi (Stockholm University)

Advanced to Candidacy

Field of Study: United States

Advisor(s): Eric Avila (Chair), Robin Kelley, Robert Fink, Charles Hughes (Rhodes College)

My research interests include Pan-Africanism, political economy, extractive industries, anti-colonialism, and nation building in West Africa.

Field of Study: Africa

I am a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at UCLA. My research focuses on intersections between biology, medicine, race, and the environment during the US atomic project.

Field of Study: Science, Medicine, and Technology

Advisor(s): Soraya de Chadarevian, Stephen Aron, Ted Porter, Elizabeth DeLoughrey

Advanced to Candidacy

Current/Former HGSA Member

I study the intellectual history of early modern Europe and the wider history of European political thought.

Field of Study: Europe

Advisor(s): Peter Stacey (chair), Andrea Moudarres, Anthony Pagden, Stefania Tutino 

Advanced to Candidacy

Liam is a PhD student in History at UCLA. His research interests include the history of urban mobility, everyday life, and access to urban space in 19th-20th century France.

Field of Study: Europe

Advisor(s): Caroline Ford

I study the legal history of the Kingdom of Sicily in the twelfth century and its connections to the Mediterranean world.

Field of Study: Medieval

Advisor(s): Jessica Goldberg (Chair), Teo Ruiz, Sharon Gerstel (Art History), Luke Yarbrough (Near Eastern Languages and Cultures), Alexander Roberts (Classics, USC)

Advanced to Candidacy

Current/Former HGSA Member

Field of Study: Japan

Advisor(s): Katsuya Hirano

Field of Study: United States

Advisor(s): Dr. Michael Meranze

Daniel Ohanian is a PhD candidate specializing in early modern and modern Ottoman-Armenian history.

Dissertation title: "Church of Armenia, Church of Rome: Faith, Print, and Power in Ottoman-Armenian History, 1688–1717"

Field of Study: Middle East

Advisor(s): Sebouh Aslanian (chair) Stefania Tutino James GelvinTijana Krstić Sanjay Subrahmanyam

Field of Study: Japan

Advisor(s): William Marotti

Current/Former HGSA Member

Field of Study: United States

Advisor(s): Robin D.G. Kelley

Bernard is a PhD Candidate in the United States field researching the history of Filipino popular culture, labor, and migration in California during the twentieth century.  

Field of Study: United States

Advisor(s): Eric Avila (Co-chair, UCLA Dept. of History, UCLA Dept. of Chicana & Chicano Studies), Toby Higbie (Co-chair, UCLA Dept. of History, UCLA Labor & Workplace Studies), Lucy Mae San Pablo Burns (UCLA Dept. of Asian American Studies), George Lipsitz (UCSB Dept. of Black Studies)

Advanced to Candidacy

Current/Former HGSA Member

Field of Study: Latin America

Lisl Schoepflin is a PhD candidate in the UCLA History Department. Her scholarly interests focus on indigenous and colonial ethnohistory and social memory practices in the Andes, with an emphasis on Inca and Spanish colonial oral a

Field of Study: Latin America

Advisor(s): Kevin Terraciano (chair), Stella Nair, Efrain Kristal, Juan Ossio, Teo Ruiz

Advanced to Candidacy

Chase's research interests center thematically on histories of cultural encounters, race and identity, religious conversion, and knowledge production, and geographically on the early modern Iberian empires in maritime Southeast Asia.

Field of Study: South and Southeast Asia

Advisor(s): Professor Sanjay Subrahmanyam

Patrick studies the impact of novel international trade networks on local communities in the "Eastern Sea" circuit of Fujian, Taiwan, and the Philippines between the 16th and 19th centuries.

Field of Study: China

I completed my PhD in May 2022, with a dissertation entitled "Seeking Freedom in the Sahel: Frontiers of Liberation and Geographies of Belonging in an Atlantic-Saharan Crossroads."

Field of Study: Africa

Advisor(s): Ghislaine Lydon (Chair); Robin D.G. Kelley; Makhroufi Ousmane Traoré; Minayo Nasiali; Andrew Apter 

Advanced to Candidacy

Claire Votava is a Ph.D. student interested in the history of science and capitalism in the 20th century scientific world.

Field of Study: Science, Medicine, and Technology

Advisor(s): Soraya de Chadarevian

Rebecca Waxman is a PhD Candidate specializing in the history of gender and sexuality in modern India. Her dissertation examines discourses of sexualized violence in late colonial and postcolonial India. 

Field of Study: South and Southeast Asia

Advisor(s): Vinay Lal; Katherine Marino; Robin Derby; Sherene Razack

Advanced to Candidacy

Current/Former HGSA Member

Field of Study: Africa

Advisor(s):  

Field of Study: Japan

Advisor(s): Katsuya Hirano 

Field of Study: Middle East

Field of Study: Latin America

I study the intersection of religion and empire in the early modern English Atlantic world.

Field of Study: United States

Advisor(s): Carla Pestana