PhD candidate, History and History of Science, Medicine & Technology
Faculty advisor: Shelly Chan
Galen is a PhD candidate studying Chinese history and the history of science. His dissertation describes how ancient China’s four great inventions – paper, printing, gunpowder, and the compass – were drawn into modern Chinese nationalism. This work sheds light on how people think about technology in China, and how tech has been tied to China’s national renewal.
Galen received a two-year University Fellowship from the Graduate School when he joined in 2014. Since then he has received a Fulbright U.S. Student Grant (2017) and a Dana-Allen Dissertation Fellowship in the Humanities (2019) for his work. He also received a summer Mellon-Wisconsin fellowship in 2019, which he said has allowed him to plan graduation a year earlier than he otherwise could have.