Isaac C.K. (Chun Kiang) Tan is a Ph.D. candidate in modern Japanese history. He has completed a double degree program, receiving a B.A. (History) from the National University of Singapore and a B.A. (International Liberal Studies) from Waseda University, Japan. Before coming to Columbia, he was teaching history and mathematics at a public high school in Singapore. His dissertation project looks at the history of bloodtype research in Japan—charting its historical development since the 1910s and highlighting its wider political, social, and cultural implications in contemporary Japan. His wider research interests include environmental and natural history, memory studies, and the history of modern East Asia. He has written journal articles on topics ranging from geopolitics in medieval East Asia to the natural history of British colonial India; and has recently received the 2021 AIHP Glenn Sonnedecker Prize for a manuscript on the dispensing separation issue in Japan.

More information on his academic profile can be found at https://tckisaac.wordpress.com.