Education

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Washington University              Ph.D.                                   Modern Chinese History

Washington University              A.M.                                    Modern Chinese History

University of Minnesota            B.A.                                     History/English

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Extramural Fellowships and Grants (selected)

 

NEH Landmarks Grant, “Grand Coulee Dam: Intersection of Modernity and Indigeneity” (2019-2020; with Dorothy Zeisler-Vralsted, K-12 workshops)

Andrew Carnegie Fellows Award (2020-2022)

Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (2020-2021)

Fulbright Foundation Scholars Award (2020; cancelled per Presidential Executive Order)

NEH Landmarks Grant, “Grand Coulee Dam: Intersection of Modernity and Indigeneity” (2019-2020; with Dorothy Zeisler-Vralsted, K-12 workshops)

Isaac Manasseh Meyer Fellowship, National University of Singapore, Faculty of Arts and Sciences (2019)

NEH Landmarks Grant, “Grand Coulee Dam: Intersection of Modernity and Indigeneity” (2016-2017; with Dorothy Zeisler-Vralsted, K-12 workshops)

Willis S. Doney Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, School for Historical Studies (Princeton, 2011-2012)

Research Fellow, National Asia Research Program (National Bureau of Asia Research and Woodrow Wilson Int'l Center for Scholars (2010-2012)

National Endowment for the Humanities Research Grant (2007-2008)

National Committee on United States-China Relations, Public Intellectuals Program (Fellow, 2005-2007)

National Science Foundation, Scholar's Grant (2005-2007)

American Philosophical Foundation, Franklin Research Grant (2005)

Andrew Mellon Fellowship, Needham Institute (for the Study of the History of East Asian Science, Medicine and Technology (Cambridge, UK, 2005)

Pacific Cultural Foundation Research Fellowship (1996-97)

China Times Cultural Foundation Research Grant (1996-97)

American Council of Learned Societies/Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Fellowship for Dissertation Research in Chinese Studies (1995-96)

                            

Awards, Recognition, Honors, etc.

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UA Academic Leadership Institute (2016-2017)

Cecil B. Curry Book Award (Association of Global South Studies, 2016; for The Yellow River)

WSU College of Liberal Arts Outstanding Achievement in International Research, Teaching and Service Award 2010-2011)

WSU University College Common Reading Program Excellence Award (2011)

College of Liberal Arts Berry Family Faculty Excellence Fellow Award (2008-2010)

Distinguished Member, The National Society of Collegiate Scholars (award: 2005)

Harvard University Derek Bok Center Certificate of Distinction in Teaching (Spring, 1996)

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Leadership Service to Professional Organizations

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Executive Council, International Water History Association

Board of Editors, Water History

Executive Committee, Association for East Asian Environmental History

Committee on Committees, Association for Asian Studies (AAS elected position)

Advisory Board, Confucian Institute of Washington State

Board of Directors, Asian Studies on the Pacific Coast (ASPAC)

President, Asian Studies on the Pacific Coast (ASPAC)

 

Professional Experience

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2022-           Regents Professor of History, University of Arizona

2019-           Distinguished Professor, Zhejiang Normal University (China)

2019-           Guest Professor, Hubei University (three-year term)

2016-           Professor, University of Arizona

2016-           Faculty Associate, Udall Center for Public Policy Research, University of Arizona

2015-           UNESCO Chair in Environmental History

2014-19       Director, Global Studies Program, University of Arizona

2014-16       Associate Professor of East Asian Studies, University of Arizona

2007-14       Associate Professor of History, Washington State University (early tenure)

2005-14       Director, Asia Program, Washington State University

2009-11       Director, Global Studies, Washington State University

2008-09       Director, Graduate Studies, Department of History

2002-07       Assistant Professor of History, Washington State University

2000-02       Assistant Professor of History, Assumption College

1997-02       Research Associate, Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University

Sp 1997       Head Teaching Fellow, Department of History, Harvard University

Fall, 1996    Teaching Fellow, Department of History, Harvard University

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Publications: Books

 

Death and Life on the Yangtze: Extinction, Conservation, and Environmental Change in Modern China (under contract with Harvard University Press)

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The Environmental History of Modern China (under contract with Cambridge University Press).

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Water and Human Societies: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (2021, Palgrave Macmillan) (with Dorothy Zeisler-Vrlasted).

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Landscape Change and Resource Utilization in East Asia: Perspectives from Environmental History (Routledge, 2018) (co-edited with Liu Ts’ui-jung and Andrea Janku).

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The Yellow River: The Problem of Water in Modern China (Harvard University Press, 2015).

 

Above, translated into Chinese: 黄河之水: 蜿蜒中的现代中国 (北京: 中国政法大学出版社, 2017); translated by Jiang Zhiqin.

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Engineering the State: The Huai River and Reconstruction in Nationalist China (Routledge, 2002, 2017).

 

Above translated into Chinese: 工程国家：民国时期的淮河治理及国家建设 (南京：江苏人民出版社, 2011); translated by Jiang Zhiqin.

 

State and Economy in Republican China: A Handbook for Scholars, 2 vols. (Harvard Asia Center, 2001) (co-editor with James Shih, William Kirby, and Lin Manhong).