dissertations directed
Kristen Connor, States of the Sky: Meteorology and Rainmaking in 20th century Uganda. (Program in Anthropology and History, University of Michigan, completion expected 2022; co-chair Derek Peterson).
Daniel Williford, Planned Precarity: Imperialism, Disaster, and Technoscience in Morocco, 1945-1970. Department of History (Department of History, University of Michigan, completion expected 2020). Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Kevin Donovan, Scaling Sovereignty: Frontiers and Futures in Postwar East Africa (Program in Anthropology and History, University of Michigan, 2018). Lecturer, Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh.
Emma Park, Infrastructural Attachments: Technologies, Mobility, and the Tensions of “Home” in Colonial and Postcolonial Kenya (Department of History, University of Michigan, 2017; co-chair Derek Peterson). Assistant Professor, Department of History, The New School for Social Research.
Tasha Rijke-Epstein, Ecologies of Belonging: Techniques of Place-Making, Competing Moral Economies, and Urban Becoming in Mahajanga, Madagascar, 1890s to present (Program in Anthropology and History, University of Michigan, 2017; co-chair Gillian Feeley-Harnik). Assistant Professor, Department of History, Vanderbilt University.
Robyn d’Avignon, Subterranean Histories: Making ‘Artisanal’ Miners on the West African Sahel (Program in Anthropology and History, University of Michigan, 2016). Assistant Professor, Department of History, New York University.
Davide Orsini, Life in the Nuclear Archipelago: Cold War Technopolitics and U.S. nuclear submarines in Italy (Program in Anthropology and History, University of Michigan, 2015; co-chair Stuart Kirsch). Assistant Professor, Department of History, Mississippi State University.
Kenneth Garner, Seeing Is Knowing: ‘Objectivity’ and the Creation of Visual Culture in France, 1870-1930 (Department of History, University of Michigan, 2012; co-chair Joshua Cole).
Stephen Sparks, Apartheid Modern: SASOL and the making of a South African company town, 1950-2009 (Program in Anthropology and History, University of Michigan, 2012). Senior Lecturer, Department of History, University of Johannesburg.
Pete Soppelsa, The Fragility of Modernity: Infrastructure and Everyday Life in Paris, 1870-1914 (Department of History, University of Michigan, 2009; co-chair Joshua Cole). Assistant Professor, History of Science, University of Oklahoma.
Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, The Mobile Workshop: Science, Technology, and Wildlife Use in the Trans-Limpopo Basin, Southern Africa, 1870-Present (Department of History, University of Michigan, 2008). Professor, Science and Technology Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
- Published as Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe (MIT Press, 2014). Honorable Mention, Herskovits Prize, African Studies Association.
Toby Craig Jones, The dogma of development: Technopolitics and the making of Saudi Arabia, 1950-1980 (Department of History, Stanford University, 2006; co-chair Joel Beinin). Associate Professor, History, Rutgers University.
- Published as Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia (Harvard University Press, 2011).
Sara B. Pritchard, Recreating the Rhône: Nature and technology in France since World War II (Department of History, Stanford University, 2001; co-chair Richard White). Associate Professor, Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University.
- Published as Confluence: The Nature of Technology and the Remaking of the Rhône (Harvard University Press, 2011).
dissertation committees & juries
Jasmine Reid, Forced Removal and the Racial Afterlives of Apartheid (Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, completion expected 2022).
Chun-Yu Wang, Refining Politics: Oil Development, Environmental Activism, and Political Improvisation in Rural Malaysia (Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, completion expected 2022).
Dean Chahim, Draining the Infinite Metropolis: Engineering and the Mundanity of Disaster in Mexico City (Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, 2021). Assistant Professor, University of Texas – El Paso (starting Fall 2022).
Rebecca Wall, The Rebellious River: Transnational Senegal River Basin Management, 1919- 2000 (Department of History, Stanford University, completion expected 2020). Visiting Assistant Professor, Hamilton College.
Nick Caverly, Restructured City: Demolition and Racial Accumulations in Detroit (Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, completion expected 2020). Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts – Amherst.
Rebecca Gruskin, Phosphates: Local Dissidence, Global Agriculture, and Environment in Gafsa, Tunisia, 1890s-1960s (Department of History, Stanford University, 2021).
Osei Boakye, Beggar Nation: An Examination of Ghana’s Political Economic History, 1946-1976 (Department of History, Stanford University, 2020).
Rachael Hill, Scientists, Healers, and Bioprospectors: The Epistemological Politics of Therapeutic Pluralism in Ethiopia, 1930-1998 (Department of History, Stanford University, 2019). Assistant Professor, Cal Poly Pomona (starting Fall 2020).
Stephanie Quinn, Claiming a ‘Land of Milk and Honey’: Labor, Urbanization, and Political Imagination in Namibia, 1945-1994 (Department of History, Stanford University, 2019). Postdoctoral fellow, University of the Free State.
Aro Velmet, Pasteur’s Empire: French Expertise, Colonialism, and Transnational Science, 1890-1945 (Department of History, New York University, 2017). Assistant Professor, University of Southern California.
Leny Patinaux, Enfouir des déchets nucléaires dans un monde conflictuel. Une histoire de la démonstration de sûreté de projets de stockage géologique en France, 1982-2013. (Sciences, savoirs, techniques : histoire et société, Centre Alexandre Koyré, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2017). Postdoctoral fellow, Laboratoire Techniques Territoires et Sociétés, CNRS / Ecole des ponts ParisTech / Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée.
Hilde Reinertsen, Powering Global Development? The Evolution of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation of Norway’s Development Aid to the Energy Sector, 1980-2010 (Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo, 2016; primary supervisor Kristin Asdal). Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.
Dan Hirschman, The Emergence of the Economy as an Object of Knowledge (Department of Sociology, University of Michigan, 2015). Assistant Professor, Brown University.
Basak Saraç Lesavre, Formulating Nuclear Values: Communities, Equations, Budgets and Debates with Nuclear Waste (Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation, Mines ParisTech, 2015).
Sarah Hamilton, From Modernization to Europeanization: Environmental Policy and Philosophy in Spain, 1900-2000 (Department of History, University of Michigan, 2013). Assistant Professor, Auburn University.
Joshua Grace, Modernization Bubu: Cars, Roads, and the Politics of Development in Tanzania, 1870s to 1980s, (Department of History, Michigan State University, 2013). Assistant Professor, University of South Carolina.
Douglas Andrew Kolozsvari, Civil Society Organizations and the Protection of Sub-Saharan Africa’s Colonial Railways (Urban and Regional Planning Program, University of Michigan, 2013). Founder, Solutions 2050.
Lydie Cabane, Gouverner les catastrophes : politiques, savoirs et organisation de la gestion des (risques) de catastrophes en Afrique du Sud (Sociologie de l’action, Sciences Po, 2012). Postdoctoral Fellow, Sciences Po – Bordeaux, France.
Bridget Lauren Guarasci, Reconstructing Life: Environment, Expertise, and Political Power in Iraq’s Southern Marshes 2003-2007 (Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, 2010). Assistant Professor, Franklin & Marshall College.
Sezin Topçu, L’agir contestataire à l’épreuve de l’atome. Critique et gouvernement de la critique dans l’histoire de l’énergie nucléaire en France, 1968-2008. (Spécialité Histoire des sciences et des techniques, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2010). Chargée de recherche CNRS, EHESS, Paris, France.
Samuel Temple, Mountain, Moor and Marsh: The Politics of Environmental Transformation in Southern France, 1850-1950 (Department of History, University of Michigan, 2010). Lecturer, University of Oklahoma.
Chandra D. Bhimull, Empire in the Air: Speed, Perception and Airline Travel in the Atlantic World (Program in Anthropology and History, University of Michigan, 2007). Associate Professor, Colby College.
Marina Welker, Global capitalism and the “caring corporation”: Mining and the corporate social responsibility movement in Indonesia and Denver (Program in Anthropology and History, University of Michigan, 2006). Associate Professor, Cornell University.
Katherine Jenny Worboys, Lessons from a catastrophe: The emergence of new social and political actors in post-dictatorship Argentina, 1984-2004 (Program in Anthropology and History, University of Michigan, 2005). Academic Director, University of Maryland College of Information.
Andrew M. Goss, The Floracrats: Civil science, bureaucracy, and institutional authority in the Netherlands East Indies and Indonesia, 1840-1970 (Department of History, University of Michigan, 2004). Associate Professor, University of New Orleans.
Carlos Martín, Riveting: Steel technology, building codes, and the production of modern places (Department of Civil Engineering, Stanford University, 1999). Senior research associate, Urban Institute.
David Adam Kirsch, The electric car and the burden of history: Studies in automotive systems rivalry in America, 1890-1996 (Department of History, Stanford University, 1997). Associate Professor, University of Maryland.
Gabrielle Hecht 