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.)

“The Forgotten History of the Transcontinental Railroads,” an invited presentation at the Museum of Chinese in America. New York City, October 24, 2019.

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.

POSTPONED. 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 a TBD date. [Postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.]

POSTPONED. I’ll present a paper, “The Pacific Railroads and the Pacific World: American Expansion, Asian Trade, and Terraqueous Mobility,” at the Long Nineteenth Century Workshop, hosted by the Humanities Council at Princeton University, in Princeton, N.J., on a TBD date. [Postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.]

I’ll present an invited paper, “They Came on Waves of Ink: Digitally Mapping Pacific Northwest Maritime Trade Networks During American Settlement, 1851–1861,” at the American Philosophical Society’s Brown Bag lunch series in Philadelphia, Pa., on May 19, 2020.

CANCELED. I was scheduled to present a paper, “The Pacific Railroads and the Pacific World: 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. [This event was canceled 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 2020 annual meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during July 16-19, 2020.

I’ll present a paper, “Settler Steamboats: Mobility, Settler Colonialism, and Steam Power in the Terraqueous Pacific Northwest, 1846–1872,” at the Western History Association 2020 annual meeting in Albuquerque, N.M., 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 Western History Association 2020 annual meeting in Albuquerque, N.M., during October 14–17, 2020.

Past events.

• “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, on March 28, 2020. [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,” 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 Forgotten History of the Transcontinental Railroads,” an invited presentation at the Museum of Chinese in America, New York City, N.Y., October 24, 2019.
• “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.
• “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.
• “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.
• “The Pacific Railroads and the Pacific Ocean: A Reassessment,“ an invited presentation 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.
• My final public oral exam—my dissertation defense—was held on Monday, January 28, 2019. (I passed!)
• “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.
• “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]
• “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.
• “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.
• “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.
• “‘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.
• “‘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.
• “‘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.