Academic interests
I am a doctoral research fellow at the University of Oslo’s ECOART project. My doctoral research looks at how arboreal ecologies shaped the visual and material cultures of the early modern global world. It traces the global trajectories of certain species of prized woods as they transformed from being part of Southeast Asian forest ecologies to globally circulated commodities used as material by craftsmen and artisans in Asia and Europe.
More broadly, my research engages with ecocritical and decolonial perspectives on histories of material culture, examining early modern regimes of resource extraction and labour, alongside indigenous environmental histories.
Background
I completed my undergraduate studies in Asia-Pacific Studies (with a major in Chinese studies) and Law at the Australian National University, Canberra. I worked as a commercial lawyer in Australia before completing an MPhil in World History at the University of Cambridge.
Awards
- Decorative Arts Trust research grant (2026/2027)
- UiO: Energy & Environment grant, University of Oslo (2026)
- Lingling Wiyadharma Fellowship, Scaliger Institute, Leiden University (2026)
- Michael O’Brien Research Grant in Intellectual History, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge (2024)
- Prince Consort Grant, University of Cambridge (2023)
- British Society for the History of Science Masters Bursary (2023)
- Liu Ts’un Yan and Liu Chiang Szu-yung Honours Scholarship in Traditional Chinese Studies, Australian National University (2012)
- Liu Ts’un Yan and Liu Chiang Szu-yung Prize in Traditional Chinese Studies, Australian National University (2011)
Talks
“A Great Fire and Whirling Smoke: ‘Nature’, arboreal ecologies and the aesthetics of burls”, presented at the Power Institute, University of Sydney (as part of the Powerful Ideas: New Research in Art History seminar series), 6 August 2026
Publications
Conference Papers
"A Great Fire and Whirling Smoke: The pterocarpus indicus, Amboyna wood and the (un)making of a global material", presented at the European Society for the History of Science/History of Science Society joint meeting, Edinburgh, Scotland, 15 July 2026
"Harvesting Arboreals: Agarwood and Indigenous Knowledge in Qing Hainan", presented at the Translating Matter: Nature, Knowledge and Craft in Early Modern East Asia and Global Contexts workshop, Graduate Institute of Art History, National Taiwan University, 1 August 2026
"Landscapes of Extraction: Fortifications, Materiality, and Transimperial Contestation in Early Modern Southeast Asia (1600-1850)", presented at the European Architectural History Network biennial conference, Aarhus University, Denmark, June 2026
“(Dis)connected Ecologies: Extraction in pre-modern South China and Southeast Asia (1600-1800)”, presented at the inaugural What is a Forest? Visual and Artistic Engagement with Woodland seminar, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, 24 November 2025
"(In)visible Rosewood: Ecocritical Perspectives on the 'Tortoiseshell' Cabinet at Ambras", presented at the EurAsian Materials in Central European Collections workshop, Innsbruck, Austria, 5-6 June 2025
"Invisible Ecologies: Global itineraries of Southeast Asian hardwoods from a material and ecological perspective 1400-1800", presented at the Artifacts, Resources and Circulation during the Early Modern Period workshop, Oslo, Norway, 28 May 2025
Other
Dumbarton Oaks Plant Humanities Summer Program, Washington DC, July-August 2025