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Sarah Ahmed
Sarah Ahmed began her doctoral studies in the Fall of 2023 under the supervision of Professor Brian Cowan. She received a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Minor in History from Florida State University in 2015 and holds an M.S. in Psychology from the University of North Florida (2019) and an M.A. in History from Boston College (2023). She has held numerous positions in social/personality and cognitive psychology labs and has published two articles on the creative thinking process. Her M.S. thesis, “The Psychology of Writer’s Block in Professional and Semi-Professional Writers: Causes and Solutions” was published in The Creativity Research Journal in 2022. “From da Vinci’s Flying Machines to a Theory of Creative Process,” a paper she co-authored with Dr. Dominick Güss and Dr. Dietrich Dörner, was published in Perspectives in Psychological Sciences in 2021. She has also designed and led a field study on the influence of groupwork on various dimensions of creative thinking in children (aged 3-6).
At Boston College, her research centered on 18th and early 19th century Britain and Ireland. She has written a case study on St. James, a politically specialized, Whig coffee house in the age of Queen Anne and about millenarian movements in 18th century England, particularly child prophecy among French Prophets and Camisard refugees and its presentation in A Cry from the Desart (1707), as well as the response of Joanna Southcott and her followers to Thomas Paine’s Third Part of the Age of Reason (1807).
Sarah hopes to combine her varied interests through her research on the emergence of child psychology in Enlightenment Britain. Her interests also include proto psychiatry and the impact of the emergence of psychology more generally on identity formation and 18th century conceptions of the Self, with a particular interest in the influence of Protestant ideology and practices.
Michael Avanzato
Michael Avanzato began his doctoral studies in August 2022 under the supervision of Dr. Laila Parsons. He holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy and International Affairs from the American University of Beirut, and a Bachelor of Arts in Legal Studies and History from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Michael’s research focuses on land tenure under the British Mandate in Palestine. In particular, he looks to the effects of British imperialism on land privatization and the dispossession of the Palestinians. His MA thesis at the American University of Beirut was supervised by Dr. Tariq Tell, and was entitled Accumulation by Dispossession in Palestine: The New Imperialism and Land Tenure under the British Mandate.
Michael is also the coordinator of the Palestine Land Studies Center at the American University of Beirut. The PLSC is committed to the documentation of Palestinian history, and supporting the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Prior to leaving Lebanon, Michael was a contributing writer for the newspaper Beirut Today, focusing on the international dynamics of imperialism.
Email: michael.avanzato [at] mail.mcgill.ca
Briar Bennett-Flammer
Briar Bennett-Flammer is doctoral candidate who specializes in ancient mediterranean religion under the Roman Empire, with a focus on early Christianity. Under the supervision of Dr. Heidi Wendt, her research re-contextualizes the archaeological and literary evidence for religious practice in Roman and post-Roman Britain in order to examine their development as the island transitions out of imperial Roman rule into pre-Medieval England. Her areas of interest include religious pluralism & identity in Late Antiquity, classical art & architecture, and the archaeology of ritual & sacred space. Briar received her MA in Classics & Archaeology from Queen's University (2020), and her B.Sc. in Neuroscience from Bishop's University (2018).
Email: briar.bennett-flammer [at] mail.mcgill.ca.
Kelvin Chan
Kelvin is a PhD candidate under the supervision of Professor David Wright. He received a Bachelor’s degree in History from the Hong Kong Baptist University (2017) and a Master’s degree in History from the London School of Economics and Political Science (2018). Kelvin is interested in the history of medicine and mental health. His master thesis focuses on the repatriation of mentally ill and destitute between the metropole and colony in the early 20th century Hong Kong. Built upon his previous research, his doctoral dissertation will explore the history of mental health in China and Hong Kong from the late 19th century. His broader research interests include the history of disability and the history of suicide.
Email: chun.k.chan [at] mail.mcgill.ca
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Sam Derksen
Sam Derksen is a PhD Candidate under the supervision of Allan Greer. Prior to his arrival at McGill, Sam obtained a Masters of Arts in History from the University of Saskatchewan (2017) and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in History (2015) also from the University of Saskatchewan.
Sam’s research focuses on the history of trade and consumption in colonial North America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His Master’s thesis used the liquor trade as a lens to examine the social dynamics that shaped exchange in the Illinois Country during the second half of the eighteenth century. His dissertation re-examines the history of the North West Company focusing on how the company was structured internally and how the company’s vast North American, Atlantic, and global trade networks functioned. This project will also explore what this study of the North West Company reveals about the history of companies, capitalism, credit, and the fur trade in colonial North America.
Cian Dinan
Cian began his PhD at McGill in 2023, under the supervision of Brian Lewis. His research focuses on questions of sexuality, forced labor, and colonial violence, particularly within the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British Empire and its zones of influence in Africa and Latin America.
Before arriving at McGill, Cian completed his MA at the University of Chicago in 2022, and was a 2020-21 Global Writing and Speaking Fellow at New York University Shanghai. He received his BA from New York University Abu Dhabi in 2016, and has worked as an editor, publicist, and cook.
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Martin Giraldo
Martin Giraldo began his doctoral studies at McGill University in 2019 under the supervision of professor Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert. He holds a Master of Arts in History from the University of Saskatchewan (2018, Owning Land, Appropriating Nature. The Configuration of an Agricultural Landscape in the Cauca River Valley, Southwestern Colombia, 1864 – 1901), and a bachelor’s degree in History from the National University of Colombia, Bogotá (2013). Located in the interdisciplinary crossroads between social, agrarian, and environmental histories, his doctoral research explores the agro-ecologies of freedom created by afro-Colombian communities in the Cauca River Valley, covering the period between the abolition of slavery and the take-off of a sugarcane agro-industry. The recovering of this environmental history is intended to acknowledge the agency of afro-Colombians in the shaping of agricultural landscapes, and to resource contemporary discussions over how to rebuild the ecological foundations of farming communities in the aftermath of Colombia’s internal armed conflict. Giraldo holds McGill’s Tomlinson fellowship.
Email: juan.giraldo2 [at] mail.mcgill.ca
Esther Guillen
Esther Guillen began her doctoral studies at McGill University in 2019 under the supervision of Dr. Heidi Wendt. Esther holds a Master of Arts in Religious Studies from the University of Regina where she was supervised by Dr. William Arnal (2019, Jesus Christ Superscribe: Knowledge, Interpretation, and Teaching in the Gospel of Matthew) and Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Religion, with minors in Greek and Roman Studies and Jewish Studies (2017). Her doctoral work focusses on scholastic religio-philosophical and textual communities of the Greco-Roman world, particularly the social milieu that surrounded the early Christian apologist Justin Martyr and may have resulted in the authorship of the Gospel of Matthew. She received a Canada Graduate Scholarship – Master’s from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada in support of her research. She has also received various other grants and scholarships that allowed her to study in Israel / Palestine and conduct in-depth independent research at both the Bachelor’s and Master’s levels.
Email: esther.guillen [at] mcgill.ca
Madhulagna Halder
Madhulagna Halder started her doctoral studies at McGill University, Canada in 2021. Halder holds an M.Phil. (2019) and an M.A. (2016) in Modern Indian History from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She obtained her B.A. (Honours) in History (2013) from Jadavpur University, India. Her research examines conditions of women political prisoners in context of postcolonial India, and the questions of prisoners’ rights in South Asia. Her research areas include history of gender, communist cultures, and memory studies. She was awarded the Professor Papiya Ghosh Memorial Prize by the Indian History Congress in 2018. Her work has been published in the Journal of the Indian History Congress and Words and Silences (forthcoming with International Oral History Association in 2022).
Email: Madhulagna.halder [at] mail.mcgill.ca
Jonathan Harper
Jonathan Harper began his PhD studies under the supervision of Thomas Schlich in 2022. His primary areas of study are the histories of modern surgery and psychiatry. Topics of interest to him include periods of therapeutic transition, interactions between societal and medical discourses, marginalized or stigmatized patient populations, and the relationship between mainstream and peripheral forms of medical practice. While much of his current research focuses on Canada, he also has research experience and an abiding interest in healthcare in mainland China as well as global health more broadly. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Calgary (2013) and a Master of Arts in Medical History from McGill (2021).
Email: jonathan.harper [at] mail.mcgill.ca
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Rishma Johal
Rishma Johal is a Ph.D. Candidate under the supervision of Dr. Elizabeth Elbourne. She recently completed research work in the United States as a Fulbright Research Award recipient based at the University of Washington. Last fall, she completed the Eccles Centre Visiting Fellowship at the British Library. Rishma is also the recipient of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Award, Fonds de Recherche du Québec Doctoral Award, MITACS Graduate Research Award, and several other awards, which supported her research activities throughout Canada, the United States, and Britain. Her research interests include Migration and Settlement in Canada and the United States, Indigenous-Settler Relations, the British Empire, and South Asian Diaspora. Rishma’s current research examines intersections among early South Asian migrants and Indigenous communities of the Pacific Northwest between 1857 and 1947. Previously, Rishma completed her MA in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies at Simon Fraser University. She also worked as a reporter for a major South Asian network covering a variety of social, cultural, and political events daily. She has published several articles and worked as a freelance writer for a few popular publications. Furthermore, Rishma has been actively involved within the McGill community serving in distinct leadership positions, such as Academic Director of the History and Classics Graduate Student Association as well as Social Media Representative for GradLife McGill. Rishma has also been actively giving talks based on her research including most recently at the Centre for the Study of the Pacific Northwest and Bishop’s University as well as being featured on different podcasts.
Christos-Stavros Konstantopoulos
I enrolled as a doctoral candidate at McGill University in 2023, under the supervision of Professor Anastassios Anastassiadis. Previously, I studied History at the University of Cambridge and I subsequently obtained an MPhil in Comparative Political Science from the University of Oxford, before serving in the Hellenic Army's History Directorate. I have worked for the SCHOOLPOL project of the University of Oxford, researching the evolution of education policies in OECD countries since the Second World War.
My current research examines the Spanish Influenza Pandemic on the Macedonian Front of the First World War, in particular comparing how it affected the British, French, and Greek troops fighting on that front. More broadly, I am interested in the history of health, population, education, and development, as well as in comparative methodologies in history and the social sciences. I am currently working as a teaching assistant for McGill University.
Email: christos.konstantopoulos [at] mail.mcgill.ca
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Dimitris Machlouta
I am a Cotutelle Ph.D. candidate at McGill University (under the supervision of Professor Tassos Anastassiadis) and the EHESS-CESPRA (under the supervision of Professor Christophe Prochasson) with an interest in global and transnational history and the history of mobilities. Born in Greece, I initially studied history and archaeology at the University of Ioannina before continuing my studies in history at York University in Toronto. Through the lens of connected history and by using a multiscale approach, my Ph.D. project examines interactions between political activists and intellectuals during the global long sixties. My focus is on Montréal and Paris. In both cities, a substantial number of Greek intellectual exiles arrived and established transnational anti-junta networks whose impact reached far beyond Canada and France.
I worked as an archivist at the National Bank of Greece’s Historical Archive in Athens and I was a Library Research Fellow at California State University in Sacramento. In Montréal (besides working as a teaching assistant at McGill) I am engaged with Immigrec, a digital humanities interdisciplinary project which created a digital archive and a Virtual Museum of Greek immigration to Canada and I received training on questions of 1) state formation and violence; 2) international relations and the Cold War; 3) political exile, intellectual migration, and refugees. In France, I am a chargé d'enseignement vacataire (part-time lecturer) and teaching assistant at the Sciences Po Paris (Le Havre Campus).
Email: dimitrios.machlouta [at] mail.mcgill.ca
Sarah Mark
A doctoral student in classical studies since August 2022, Sarah Mark is interested in the history of the Roman Republic, particularly the fates of hostages and prisoners of war, and the aftermath of battle. In addition to the topics of ransom and slavery, she is also interested in the political complexities around famous defeats like Cannae, Trasimene, and Arausio, and the extent to which authors projected the tensions and traumas of their own times back onto the events of the past.
Before beginning her studies at McGill under the supervision of Professor Michael Fronda, Sarah earned a Master's in Classics from the University of British Columbia, and a second Master's in Roman Myth and History from the University of Exeter. She has also worked for the public sector in research funding and policy analysis. She has a love of poetry, satire, and horseback riding.
Email: sarah.mark [at] mail.mcgill.ca
Donald Morard
Donald Morard is a Ph.D. candidate at McGill University in the Department of History and Classical Studies under the supervision of Kristy Ironside. His primary areas of research are Soviet economic history, the history of food under socialism, and the Baltic Sea region. He has a BA from Missouri University of Science and Technology and an MA from the Higher School of Economics in Saint Petersburg, Russia. His current project focuses on Soviet Estonian agricultural reform in the 1970s and 80s, its entanglement with the global rise of industrial farming and agribusiness, and how these reforms failed when scaled to an all-union implementation. Through this he hopes to bring the Soviet Union into the broader history of modern food systems along with highlighting how areas often deemed peripheral like Estonia can function as important spaces for translating and synthesizing different forms of economic knowledge.
Email: donald.morard [at] mail.mcgill.ca
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Teddy Paikin
I am a PhD candidate at McGill University under the supervision of Professors William Clare Roberts and Noam Maggor. I have a BA in Political Science from Sciences Po Paris and an MA in Philosophy from the New School for Social Research. My research focuses on the history of French political economy and French capitalism in the nineteenth century. More specifically, my dissertation engages with the Saint-Simonian theory of the developmental state and its relationship to the economics of French imperialism. Given my academic background, my methodology and theoretical approach is multidisciplinary, standing at the intersection of intellectual history, political economy, political theory and historical sociology. My research is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
Email: teddy.paikin [at] mail.mcgill.ca
Azizul Rasel
Azizul Rasel is a doctoral student at the Department of History and Classical Studies at McGill University. He is working under the supervision of Professor Subho Basu. His Ph.D. research focuses on the history of working classes of East Pakistan (erstwhile known as East Bengal and presently Bangladesh). He explores both the social structures and forms of consciousness of urban working classes with particular emphasis on the 1960s, globally a turbulent and insurgent period. His research is generously funded by the Peter Cundill Fellowship (2021-2023. He completed his BA and MA from Dhaka University, Bangladesh and Leiden University, the Netherlands with Encompass Scholarship. Apart from his primary research project he is interested in African History, Marxism and Postcolonial Theory.
Prior to joining at McGill, he lived in Dhaka and taught at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh, Dhaka. He was also a research fellow and coordinator at the Center for Advanced Theory, ULAB, Dhaka.
Email: m.rasel [at] mail.mcgill.ca
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Philip Santos
Philip Santos is a PhD candidate under the supervision of professor Brian Cowan. He obtained his Master of Arts in History at Queen’s University, Kingston (2019) and his Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in History at Ryerson University (2017) where he also completed a Minor in Philosophy.
Philip’s research focus is the history of capitalism and the intellectual history of the Scottish Enlightenment. The work of Adam Smith is his principal focal point. Philip’s dissertation interests lie in understanding Smith’s political economy in historical context, and the impact of Smith’s ideas in transnational perspective. More generally he is interested in studying critiques of society in the era of Enlightenment and the genealogy of economic thought. Philip is the recipient of the Doug Webb Award in History (2016), the Chair in Canadian-Scottish Graduate Award (2019), and the Ian & Helgi Soutar Graduate Award in Canadian Scottish Studies (2019-2020).
Email: philip.santos [at] mail.mcgill.ca
Louise Swaffer
Louise Swaffer is a PhD candidate in the Department of History and Classical Studies at McGill University, First Class MA (Hons) graduate of University of Glasgow (2017) and Saint Mary’s University (MA, 2020). She is inaugural recipient of the Canadian-Scottish Studies Doctoral Fellowship (2020-25) through the St. Andrews/McEuen Scholarship Foundation Chair in Canadian-Scottish Studies at McGill University. Her research is driven by interest in migrations and communities, settler colonialism and state formation in the British Empire and focusses on Scottish migration. At the undergraduate level, award-winning work (RHS) explored the relationship between large-scale emigration and the political argument for devolution in post-WWII Scotland. Combining a global Scottish diaspora framework with local, regional, national, and gendered settler lenses, meanwhile, helps bring out more nuanced understandings of the relationship between British migration, settler state formation, and the globalised world; a core finding in her work at master’s level (see forthcoming ‘Social reform, settler state formation, and the Scottish diaspora in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: a critique’ in Atlantic Studies). Her current research, supervised by Dr. Don Nerbas, builds on re-framing the study of British migration in the modern period in a place-based case study of working-class Scottish migration and British community formation in early twentieth-century Montreal. Louise has worked on several funded academic and public research projects related to migration in the modern period, currently ‘The Human Cost of Food’ through ActiveHistory.ca. Please visit the Canadian-Scottish Studies page here: https://www.mcgill.ca/canadianscottishstudies/
Email: louise.swaffer [at] mail.mcgill.ca
Lukas Tsiptsios
Agrégé d’histoire in France, I am a cotutelle Ph.D. student at McGill University (under the supervision of Professor Tassos Anastassiadis) and the University of Rouen-Normandie (under the supervision of Professor Jean-Numa Ducange) with an interest in post-Ottoman political history. Born in Germany and educated in France, I graduated in 2017 in History and Political Science at the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. In parallel, I also studied History at the École normale supérieure (Paris). In 2019, I completed my Master at Paris 1 with a thesis on the social history of Thessaloniki during the Interwar period through PAOK, the football team founded by the Constantinopolitan Greeks in the city. Through the lenses of sports, I tried to understand the consequences of the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey, and especially the formation of new political cleavages after the arrival of the Asia Minor refugees in Thessaloniki. My current Ph.D. project focuses on Greek expansionism in Asia Minor, state formation and internal colonization in Macedonia after the Balkan Wars.
In 2019-2020 I worked as a Teaching Fellow at the French Department of Columbia University. Then I was a chargé de cours at the University of Rouen-Normandy in 2021-2022. Now I work as a teaching assistant at McGill.
Email: lukas.tsiptsios [at] mail.mcgill.ca
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Riley Wallace
Riley Wallace is a Ph.D. candidate under the supervision of Dr. Catherine Desbarats. He has a BA in History from the University of Alberta (2017) and an MA in History from McGill University (2019), as well as work experience at the Archives of the Jesuits in Canada, Montreal. His doctoral research focuses on the intersection of archives, information, law, and early modern imperial state formation in post-Conquest Quebec specifically, and the wider early modern British Empire more broadly. Moreover, with a deep background in the historiography of the early modern French Empire, Riley brings an Atlantic and comparative approach to Quebec history. His SSHRC and FRQSC funded dissertation, entitled “Archives, Governance, and the Politics of Information in post-Conquest Quebec, 1759-1791,” examines how a small cadre of British administrators managed to govern a French-Canadian population who professed a different faith, spoke a different language, and practiced different laws. It seeks to understand how British administrators used information (demographic, geographic, legal, and economic) as a technology of rule, and, conversely, how the new ‘information order’ was shaped by both the material constraints of physical archives and the many interest groups vying for influence in the new regime: British merchants, Canadian habitants, seigneurs, notaries and lawyers, judges, the clergy, and the various organs of the British administration.
Email: riley.wallace [at] mail.mcgill.ca