Research Interests: Global East Asia; history of science, medicine, and technology; environmental history; women and gender studies; history of knowledge; postcolonial science studies.

Nan Zhang is a PhD student in history of science. She is broadly interested in the social, cultural, and political makings of science, technology, and medicine in global East Asia. More specifically, her research interests include history of environmental and human sciences, history of knowledge, science and colonialism, and women and gender studies. Her previous work examined how the interplay among eugenics, feminism, and transnational biomedical networks shaped the clinical dynamics of birth control in Nationalist urban China during the 1930s. At Harvard, Nan aims to expand her research on the relationship between science and society in modern East Asian polities and beyond, foregrounding transnational conditions and the ways in which on-the-ground actors interacted with state apparatus and its agents in knowledge production. She aspires to write histories that compare and connect.

Previous Degrees:

B.A., History, Xiamen University

M.A., Early Modern History, King’s College London

M.Phil., History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine, University of Cambridge