I’ve discussed my research at Princeton, Yale, and Columbia, and at the Newberry Library, the American Philosophical Society, and the Museum of Chinese in America, among others. This page lists my upcoming and past speaking engagements. (You can also follow me on Twitter for periodic updates about future events.)

If you’re interested in having me speak at your campus, museum, or other institution, please get in touch. I’m also available to comment on other scholarly work at workshops and symposia, and I’m always interested in collaborating with other scholars on panel proposals for future conferences.

Upcoming events.

I’ll present an invited paper, “Settler Steamboats: Mobility, Settler Colonialism, and Steam Power in the Terraqueous Pacific Northwest, 1846–1872,” at the History of Ocean Science, Technology and Medicine working group, a part of the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine, over Zoom on September 15, 2020.

I’ll present a paper, “Settler Steamboats: Mobility, Settler Colonialism, and Steam Power in the Terraqueous Pacific Northwest, 1846–1872,” at the virtual Western History Association 2020 annual meeting during October 14–17, 2020, as part of a conference panel, “Mobility, Settler Colonialism, and Place in the North American West,” that I organized.

I’ll present on the roundtable table session “New Directions in the Study of the Pacific West,” at the virtual Western History Association 2020 annual meeting during October 14–17, 2020.

I’ll present an invited paper, “The Pacific Railroads and the Pacific Ocean: American Expansion, Asian Trade, and Terraqueous Mobility, 1869–1914,” at the Boston Seminar on Modern American Society and Culture, hosted by the Massachusetts Historical Society, in Boston, Mass., on Tuesday, February 23, 2021. [This event was rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.]

I’ll present a paper, “Routes to the Pacific: Terraqueous Mobility, Geographic Imagination, and American Westward Expansion, 1776–1846,” as part of the panel “Geography Lessons: Spatial Thinking Beyond the Map” at the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic 2021 annual meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during July 2021. [This event was rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.]

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Past events.

Invited talks

• “They Came on Waves of Ink: Digitally Mapping Pacific Northwest Maritime Trade Networks During American Settlement, 1851–1861,” at the American Philosophical Society’s (virtual!) Brown Bag lunch series in Philadelphia, Pa. over Zoom on May 19, 2020.
• “The Forgotten History of the Transcontinental Railroads,” at the Museum of Chinese in America, New York City, N.Y., October 24, 2019.
• “The Pacific Railroads and the Pacific Ocean: A Reassessment,“ at the Yale Westerners’ Lunch, hosted by the Department of History and the Howard R. Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borderlands, Yale University, March 27, 2019.

Conference activity

Conferences organized

• “Water and the Making of Place in North America,” American Studies graduate student conference, Princeton University, October 14–15, 2016. (Co-organized with Julia Grummitt and Kimia Shahi.)

Conference papers presented

• “The Pacific Railroads and the Pacific Worlds: American Expansion, Asian Trade, and Terraqueous Mobility,” as part of the panel “Commercial Diplomacy, Railroad Expansion, and International Activism Across the Nineteenth-and-Twentieth-Century Pacific World” at the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations 2020 annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, in June 2020. [Canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.]
• “Whistling in the Dark: Steamboat Pilots and Navigational Labor in the Pacific Northwest, 1870–1920,” as part of the panel “Wayfinding: Mobility, Mediating Technologies, and Landscapes in Environmental History” at the American Society for Environmental History 2020 annual conference in Ottawa, Canada, in March 2020. [Canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.]
• “The Pacific Railroads and the Pacific World: American Expansion, Asian Trade, and Terraqueous Mobility,” at the American Historical Association 2020 annual conference, in New York City, N.Y., on January 4, 2020, as part of a conference panel, “Imperial Ties: The U.S. Transcontinental Railroads in Global and Indigenous Contexts,” that I organized.
• “The Pacific Railroads and the Pacific World: American Expansion, Asian Trade, and Terraqueous Mobility,” at the Western History Association 2019 annual conference, Las Vegas, Nev., October 18, 2019, as part of a conference panel, “Western Waterfronts: The Pacific Coast and the North American West,” that I co-organized with Madison Heslop.
• “Digital Visualizations of Pacific Northwest Maritime Trade Networks During American Settlement, 1851–61,” as part of “Six Shooters: A Digital Frontiers Lightning Round” at the Western History Association 2019 annual conference, Las Vegas, Nev., October 17, 2019.
• “Routes to the Pacific: Maps, Terraqueous Mobility, and American Westward Expansion, 1776–1846,” at “The Power of Maps and the Politics of Borders,” a conference hosted by the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, Pa., October 12, 2019. (YouTube link.)
• “Stories in a Muddy Ledger: Narrating a Non-Narrative Source with Digital Humanities Tools” (invited paper), “Digital Hermeneutics: From Research to Dissemination” conference, German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C., October 11, 2019.
• “Mapping Pacific Northwest Maritime Trade Networks During American Settlement, 1851–61,” North American Society for Oceanic History 2019 annual conference [schedule], New Bedford, Mass., May 16, 2019.
• “Water Lines: Maritime Mobility and Marine Borders in the Pacific Northwest,” Western History Association 2018 annual conference, San Antonio, Tex., October 19, 2018. [Conference schedule: PDF, Issuu]
• “Enclosing the Water: Houseboats, Law, and Property in Puget Sound,” at “Life and Law in Rural America,” American Studies Graduate Student Conference, Princeton University, March 26, 2016.
• “Saltwater Settlement: Water, Sovereignty, and Settler Colonialism,” Newberry Consortium in American Indian Studies (N.C.A.I.S.) Graduate Student Conference, Newberry Library, Chicago, Ill., August 7, 2015.
• “‘The Only Chinese Aviator in the World’: Tom Gunn, Race, and Aviation in the U.S. and China, 1912–1925,” James A. Barnes Club Graduate Student Conference, Department of History, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa., March 28, 2015.
• “‘Chinese Birdmen’: Aviation and Race in the Transnational American West, 1895–1919,” at “Race, Ethnicity, and Migration: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference,” Center for the Study of Ethnicity & Race and Departments of History and Sociology, Columbia University, New York City, N.Y., February 26, 2015.

Campus workshops and comments

Workshop papers presented

• “The Pacific Railroads and the Pacific Worlds: American Expansion, Asian Trade, and Terraqueous Mobility,” at the Long Nineteenth Century Workshop, hosted by the Humanities Council, Princeton University. [Canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.]
• “Settler Steamboats: Mobility, Settler Colonialism, and Steam Power in the Terraqueous Pacific Northwest, 1846–1872,” at the Colonialism and Imperialism Workshop, hosted by the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, Princeton University, February 12, 2020.
• “The Pacific Railroads and the Pacific World: American Expansion, Asian Trade, and Terraqueous Mobility,” Princeton American Studies Graduate Salon, May 13, 2019.
• “Using Digital Mapping to Illuminate Non-Narrative Sources,” Data Conversations in History, organized by the Center for Digital Humanities and hosted by the Department of History, Princeton University, April 11, 2019.
• “Water Lines: Marine Borders, Maritime Trade, and Steamboat Sovereignty in the Terraqueous Pacific Northwest, 1846–1872,” Long Nineteenth Century Workshop, the Humanities Council, Princeton University, December 12, 2018.
• “Borders and the Wet West: Indigenous Treaties, Marine Boundaries, and Annexation Schemes in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century Pacific Northwest,” Colonialism and Imperialism Workshop, Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (P.I.I.R.S.), Princeton University, April 5, 2018.
• “Harbors and the Wet West: The Northwest Passage, Commercial Expansionism, and Maritime Trade in the Nineteenth-Century Pacific Northwest,” Modern America Workshop (M.A.W.), Department of History, Princeton University, November 9, 2017.
• “A Watery Critique of Settler Colonialism,” Colonialism and Imperialism Workshop, Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (P.I.I.R.S.), Princeton University, May 3, 2017.
• “Waterlocked: Connection, Distance, and Isolation in the New Northwest,” Modern America Workshop (M.A.W.), Department of History, Princeton University, March 6, 2017.
• “Changes on the Waters: Indigenous and Settler Place-Making on the Salish Sea,” Works-in-Progress Session, Princeton–Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities, School of Architecture, Princeton University, July 9, 2015.
• “‘Whether They Are To Be Exterminated’: Native Americans, Military Science, and Ambivalence on the Pacific Railroad Surveys, 1853–1855,” Colonialism and Imperialism Workshop, P.I.I.R.S., Princeton University, March 11, 2015.

Comments delivered

• For Sarah Hunt, “Plural Legal Geographies of the B.C. Coast: Struggles over Water, Fish and Jurisdiction,” at “Contested Lands: Territory, Resources, and Identity in Contemporary Canada” (symposium), Princeton–Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism and the Humanities, Princeton University, September 30, 2017.
• For Michael Rawson, “The Nature of Tomorrow: A History of the Environmental Future,” Modern America Workshop, Dept. of History, Princeton Univ., April 27, 2017.

Other events

• My final public oral exam—my dissertation defense—was held on Monday, January 28, 2019. (I passed!)