Malaya Caligtan-Tran

Caligtan-Tran in black sleeveless top smiling head tilted left indoors
mcaligtantran@g.harvard.edu

Research Interests: Environmental history; history of empire; Native American and Indigenous Studies; Southeast Asian Studies; Asian American Studies; science and colonialism.

Malaya Caligtan-Tran is a PhD student in American Studies. Their research engages with the Cordillera region of the Philippines and the reverberating impacts of American colonialism. They examine the intersections of Igorot identity with Indigeneity, extraction, development, and self-determination in the diaspora and the “homeland.” Malaya was a Fulbright research grantee to the Philippines.

Publications:

Caligtan-Tran, M., Mostiller, M. H., Chibana, M., & Achacoso, K. (2025). On the Politics of Indigeneity and Asian Settler Colonialism in Asia: A Roundtable Discussion. Amerasia Journal, 51(1–2), 124–143. https://doi.org/10.1080/00447471.2025.2591589

Caligtan-Tran, M. (2022). Et isgeng takos nan sagradoy luta ay naey (Let us tread mindfully and live forever on this sacred soil). Alon: Journal for Filipinx American and Diasporic Studies, 2(3). http://dx.doi.org/10.5070/LN42360543

Previous Degrees:

B.A., Indigenous Public Health, Pitzer College