current-phd-students

Samuel M. Hellmann

Samuel M. Hellmann 

Field: Chinese Media and Cinema
Advisor: Ying Qian and Lydia Liu
Email: smh2282@columbia.edu

Samuel Hellmann is a PhD candidate in Chinese media and cinema. He is affiliated with the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society and the Center for Comparative Media. His dissertation, tentatively titled “International Form / Socialist Content,” looks at the work of central state architects in the early years of the Chinese Revolution alongside their Soviet counterparts, turning to both design work and theoretical output to reconstruct the parameters of socialist internationalism as it materialized in the physical spaces of urban and rural China. Before coming to Columbia, he earned a BA in history from McGill University and an MA in political theory from the CUNY Graduate Center

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Scarlett Jiali He

Scarlett Jiali He

Field: Modern History of Tibet
Advisors: Gray Tuttle
Email: jh4729@columbia.edu

Scarlett He is a PhD student in the EALAC-History program. Her research interest is the modern history in Tibet, the decolonization of artworks, and the critical approach to disclose and decentralize the socio-political bias on non-indigenous art objects exposed in foreign contexts. She gained an MA in East Asian Art History and European Art History at Heidelberg University. Her thesis studies the Ming-commissioned Tibetan Buddhist art in Amdo and discusses the roles of Tibetan monks in the Ming court. Before coming to New York, Scarlett lived in Europe and worked as an independent researcher in German and French museums, conducting provenance research on Tibetan objects. Her current research is on the history of art collecting undertaken by European and American expeditors in 20th-century Tibet and the later trace of the objects in Western Europe and the US.

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Michelle L. Hauk

Michelle L. Hauk

Field: Japanese History
Advisors: Gregory Pflugfelder & Paul Kreitman
Email: mlh2210@columbia.edu

Michelle L. Hauk’s research explores the social, cultural, and material history of domestic architecture in Japan through the lens of water and water-related technologies. Her research on water combines her interest in urban and architectural history with the histories of technology, everyday life, and gender and family dynamics in Japan. Before entering the Ph.D. program at Columbia University, Michelle taught design studio and architectural history at the Sam Fox School of Art & Design at Washington University in St. Louis, including a history seminar on Women in Architecture. Michelle earned an M.Arch and MSAS at Washington University in St. Louis in 2015 and received her BA in studio art and East Asian studies from Kalamazoo College.

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