Advising

I advise student research on the history of the United States in the world and modern international history. I am especially interested in working with students who adopt fresh approaches and/or look at understudied actors, themes, or connections. My main regions of expertise outside the US are Asia and the Middle East and most students I supervise have some interest in at least one of those regions. 

Note to potential applicants to the PhD program in History: I am generally open to accepting new students and look forward to reading your applications. If you have questions about the program, please contact our graduate program coordinator, Dan Bertwell (bertwell@fas.harvard.edu). 

Doctoral advisees:

  • Dina Hassan, "Colored Empires: The Comparative and Connective History of Pan-Asianism and Pan-Africanism in the Early 20th Century"
  • Daniel Chardell PhD '23. "The Gulf War: An International History, 1989-1991"
  • Marino Auffant PhD '22. "Globalizing Oil, Unleashing Capital: An International History of the 1970s Energy Crisis"
  • Ruodi Duan PhD '22. "Ends of Solidarity: China, Tanzania, and Black Internationalism, 1960-1972"
  • Thomas M. Jamison PhD '20. "Pacific Wars: Peripheral Conflict and the Making of the U.S. 'New Navy,' 1865-
    1897"
  • Lydia Walker PhD '18. "States-in-Waiting: Nationalism, Internationalism, Decolonization"
  • Steffen Rimner PhD '14. "The Asian Origins of Global Narcotics Control, c. 1860-1909"
  • Jane Hong PhD '13. "Reorienting America: Race, Geopolitics, and the Repeal of Asian Exclusion, 1940-1952"

Dissertation committee member:

  • Jesus Solis PhD '24. "Black Market Empire: The Illicit Sale of American Goods, Combat Supplies, and Drugs in Japan and America’s Underground Lake, 1945-1975"
  • Bohao Wu PhD '23. "Uneasy Friends and Convenient Enemies: Sino-Japanese Competition and Coordination in Cold War Asia, 1950–1972"
  • Rachel Steely PhD '22. "Invisible Giant: The Global Rise of Soy in the Twentieth Century"
  • Kristin Oberiano PhD '21. "Territorial Discontent: Chamorros, Filipinos, and the Making of the United States Empire on Guam"
  • Madeleine Dungy PhD '17. "Peace, Power, and Economic Order: International Rivalry and Cooperation in European Trade Politics, 1900-1930"
  • Eva Payne PhD '17. "Purifying the World: Americans and International Sexual Reform, 1865–1933"
  • Zach Fredman PhD '16. “From Allies to Occupiers: Living with the U.S. Military in Wartime China, 1941–1945” (BU, external reader)
  • Asher Orkaby PhD '14. "The International History of the Yemen Civil War, 1962-1968"
  • Kimberly A. Lowe PhD '13. "The Red Cross and the New World Order, 1918-1924" (Yale, external reader)
  • Jeremy Yellen PhD '12. "The Two Pacific Wars: Visions of Order and Independence in Japan, Burma, and the Philippines, 1940-1945"
  • Erik Linstrum PhD '12. "Making Minds Modern: The Politics of Psychology in the British Empire, 1898-1970"
  • Vernie Oliveiro PhD '10. "The United States, multinational corporations and the politics of globalization in the 1970s"
  • Ann Marie Wilson PhD '10. "Taking liberties abroad : American and the international humanitarian advocacy, 1821-1914"
  • Trygve Throntveit PhD '08. "Related states : pragmatism, progressivism, and internationalism in American thought and politics, 1880--1920"

Undergraduate senior theses advisees:

  • Kendall Carll '26, "“Limits of Liberty: The United States, China, and the Rise of Democratic Taiwan, 1989–1998” (winner, Hoopes Prize)
  • Ryan Santos '23, "The Quiet Filipino: The Philippines and the clandestine outsourcing of the American Wars in Indochina, 1954 - 1967"
  • Jonah Lefkoe '19, "Defending the Open Door: The Promise and Perils of Economic Diplomacy in US China Relations, 1898-1922"
  • Sophie Mehta '19, "Front Organizations and Back Doors: The Indian Congress for Cultural Freedom and the CIA in the Cold War"
  • Richard Tong '19, "'SO CALD CIVILIZED NATIONS': Anglophone Internationalism in the Early Twentieth Century"
  • Anatol Klass '17, "China's New Order: The Republic of China and the United Nations System in Asia, 1945-1950" (winner, Hoopes Prize)
  • Benjamin Harland '16, "Universality and Inclusion or Neutrality and Exclusion: Magen David Adom’s Campaign for A New Red Cross Symbol, 1948-2006"
  • Julian Gewirtz ’13, “River Crossings: The Influence of Western Economists on Chinese Reform, 1978-1988” (winner, Hoopes Prize and Philip Washburn Prize). Revised and expanded version published as Unlikely Partners: Chinese Reformers, Western Economists, and the Making of Global China (Harvard, 2017)
  • David Alan Fuller ’13, “The Balangiga Inflection: Massacre, Media, and the United States’ Understanding of Empire in the Philippines, 1898-1902”
  • Peter Gamble Bacon ’11, “Ambassadors with Bulldozers: American Development in Afghanistan, 1945-1959”
  • Mohindra Rupram ’10, “The American Intervention in Guyana: International, Regional and Domestic Contexts”
  • Robert Gerard King ’10, “Academic Scribblers: Policy Reports and the Making of American Strategy on Latin America, 1948-1980”
  • Amy Michelle Zelcer ‘07, “Henry Morgenthau Jr., the Holocaust, and the Transformation of American Jewish Identity” (winner, Lillian Bell Prize in History)