Hello! I am a Research Assistant Professor at the Division of Public Policy, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. My research interests include environmental history and animal history; histories of science, technology and medicine (i.e., zoonoses, biomedicine, and public health); food and foodways; Southeast Asian studies. I often use the Philippines, my home country, as my geographic focus. I am to bridge history and public policy in my research by building expertise in the emerging fields of health-environmental humanities to examine contemporary health, food, and environmental concerns.
Previously, I held lectureship positions at the Department of History, The University of Hong Kong; and the Health Sciences Program and Department of History at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. I was also a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Division of Environment and Sustainability at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
My doctorate thesis was on the historical animal geographies and the emergence of modern health in the Philippines during the colonial nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I finished my PhD at the Department of History, Faculty of Arts, The University of Hong Kong in 2021. I completed my MA in History at the Ateneo de Manila University in 2015.
I have been teaching since 2012, with experience in Manila and Hong Kong. I have taught courses on Philippine history, Southeast Asian history, historiography, digital games in history, animals, and food and empire. I have also supervised undergraduate students for their senior thesis and capstone projects.
My works have appeared in top peer-reviewed journals including Climate Risk Management, Electricity Journal, Society & Animals, Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health, Global Food History, and East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal. I have several book chapters and journal articles, including Routledge and the University of Hawai’i Press.
My research was recognized with several awards. I became the 2021-22 recipient of the Wang Gungwu Prize for Research Postgraduate Students awarded for the best thesis of the year. I also received the Young Historian’s Prize 2022, awarded by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts of the Republic of the Philippines. Most recently, my doctorate thesis was shortlisted for the ICAS Book Prize 2023 – Best Dissertation in the Humanities, International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS), IIAS, Leiden, The Netherlands.
As an academic scholar, I have presented my work in environmental history, Southeast Asian, and Philippine history conferences in Asia, Europe, and the United States. I have been invited to talk about animal history, disease ecologies, and historical methods at universities in the Philippines and Hong Kong. I also engage with the public audience by delivering lectures on the environment, animals, and health histories through online platforms, working with the Philippine consulate in Hong Kong on culture and heritage, and writing commentaries for the Hong Kong Free Press and Asia Global Online.
In my free time, I can be found on beaches, food trips, and museums all over Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia.
