PhD Candidate
East Asia: China
I am a historian of China researching imperial expansion, diplomacy, and frontier policy in China’s Southeast Asian and Northeast Asian frontiers. My dissertation, Constructing China’s Imperial Frontier in Southeast Asia, examines the expansion of the Mongol-Yuan Empire (1206-1368/88) into upper mainland Southeast Asia, an area stretching from southwestern China to the northern reaches of modern-day Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. I focus especially on how Mongol-Yuan generals and administrators relied on the cooperation of polities such as the kingdom of Dali (937-1253) to achieve their geostrategic objectives, drawing on local assistance to help mobilize human and material resources for further campaigns throughout Southeast Asia. My research highlights the agency of local populations in negotiating the creation of hybrid forms of administration that would characterize imperial rule in Yunnan throughout the Mongol-Yuan period and into the Ming dynasty (1368-1644/61). By drawing on new primary source materials––such as funerary epitaphs from local populations in Dali, epigraphic evidence in Burmese, or chronicle histories in Tai (Shan)––I thus explore the implications of imperial expansion in local society, highlighting how local institutions, ideas, and identities were transformed by the Mongol conquest.
Publications
- “Mäng Maaw and the Making of Ming Yunnan: Cooperation, Patronage, and War in Upper Mainland Southeast Asia, 1382-1454.” T’oung Pao. Accepted and forthcoming.
Recent Awards and Fellowships
- Luce/ACLS Program in China Studies Travel Grant – 2024-2025
- Center for Chinese Studies Fellowship, UC Berkeley – 2024-2025
- Global, International, and Area Studies (GIAS) Simpson ABD Grant, UC Berkeley – 2024-2025
- Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) Fellowship – 2023-2024
- Institute for International Studies (IIS) Simpson Research Grant, UC Berkeley – 2023
- Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS) Graduate Fellowship, UC Berkeley – 2023
- Geiss-Hsu Foundation Society for Ming Studies Grant – 2023
- Dr. C.F. Koo and Cecilia Koo Chair Fellowship in East Asian Studies, UC Berkeley – 2022
- Asian Studies on the Pacific Coast (ASPAC) Jeffrey Barlow Graduate Student Prize in Chinese Studies – 2022
- Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Summer Award: Korean – 2022
- Berkeley History Department Graduate Seminar Paper Prize – 2022
- Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Summer Award: Burmese – 2021
- Berkeley History Department Graduate Seminar Paper Prize – 2021
- Beinecke Scholar – 2018-2023
