University of Houston Department of History

08/31/2026

Our awesome undergraduates! Congratulations to Isabella Brammer, Anthony J. Martinez, Jorge Palomo, and Martín D. Salazar Sánchez on their summer research!

College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at UH congratulates four Class of 2027 history majors for their original research over the summer as Mellon Foundation Research Scholars with support from CLASS faculty. See the comments for more about what these seniors studied. UH Research The University of Houston Department of History

08/31/2026

Congratulations to Sutanwi Chatterjee (PhD Candidate) on presenting her paper, "Polluted Passages: Pilgrimage, Disease (Cholera, Smallpox) and Environmental Regulation in Colonial Port Bombay (1885- 1914)", as part of the panel "Science and Empire in the Anthropocene" at the European Society for the History of Science (ESHS) and History of Science Society (HSS) conference held at University of Edinburgh this past July. Chatterjee's presentation was in addition to a month-long research trip at the British Library. Way to go!

08/24/2026

Welcome back! We have an exciting slate of events this year!

05/31/2026

What are some of the results of a research fellowship in history? Dr. Alexey Golubev, Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Houston, shares how a 2024-25 fellowship from the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine helped him complete research for his latest book project. Using archival materials in the northeastern United States, Dr. Golubev shows how "throughout the entire Cold War period from late Stalinism to Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika, Soviet authorities and intellectuals conducted one of the most massive state-sponsored campaigns for public communication of science in history." https://www.chstm.org/news/knowledge-propaganda-soviet-socialism-epistemic-project

05/29/2026

The Department of History at UH celebrates its outstanding graduate students, many of whom specialize in the histories of South Asia and its global connections. PhD Candidate Sutanwi Chatterjee studies the history of medicine and disease in port cities and has presented her work in a paper, ''Mercury as Medicine in the Indian Subcontinent (1750-1915)," at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference. Her current work examines the socio-cultural and diplomatic roles of urban colonial authorities and physicians in Bombay dockyards' medical infrastructure policies during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

05/27/2026

Sharing Stories from 1977: PUTTING THE NATIONAL WOMEN'S CONFERENCE ON THE MAP, a co-directed project by UH History faculty Drs. Nancy Beck Young and Leandra Zarnow. At https://sharingstories1977.uh.edu/discover you can learn more about women who shaped the conference, including Fa’au’uga Suesue Lutu Achica (Delegate from American Samoa) and Delthia Akiu (Delegate from Hawaii), among many others. According to NWC Delegate Mary Arimoto from California, “For Asian and Pacific women, it was the first time we have ever met nationally, and we’re going to try to develop a national network.” (quoted in Los Angeles Times, November 24, 1977). This project exemplifies the public-facing work our historians do at UH and a reminder of the interconnections of and

05/24/2026

Dr. N. L. A. Gharala, Associate Professor of History, was honored this year with a President's Circle Award from the University of Houston in recognition of the volume Everyday Life in the Philippines (1657-1699): Selections from the Manuscripts of Juan de Paz, edited with Marya Svetlana T. Camacho and Juan Mesquida (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025). Using a unique manuscript from the collections of the Archivo de la Universidad de Santo Tomás in Manila, the authors provide a window into the concerns, problems, and entanglements of people of different ethnicities, occupations, and stations in life. Paz’s writings resolving conflicts and weighing in on questions (consultas) have not previously been translated into English. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-81493-8

05/23/2026

UH Historian Dr. Xiaoping Cong is a scholar of late imperial and 20th century China, focusing on women's history, intellectual history, legal history, and the history of modern education in China. She received her Ph.D. from UCLA in 2001 and joined the University of Houston community in the same year. Her prize-winning book Teachers' Schools and the Making of Modern Chinese Nation-state, 1897-1937 examines the social and political aspects and impacts of these schools. Dr. Cong teaches widely on the histories of China and Japan, as well as China in World History.

05/22/2026

UH Historian Dr. Nandini Bhattacharya is Professor of South Asian history and history of medicine and the author of Disparate Remedies: Making Medicines in Modern India (2023). Dr. Bhattacharya's book follows the evolution of medicine in colonial India as it confronted Indian modernity and changing public attitudes surrounding health and drugs. A leading scholar and graduate mentor in our department, Dr. Bhattacharya's work has been supported by several international grants and institutions. She is currently at work on a study of the social history of alcohol.

05/21/2026

The Department of History congratulates Nine Abad (Class of 2026) on an award-winning senior honors thesis tracing the intertwined histories of Filipino folkloric monsters and spiritual leaders! Under the direction of Dr. N. L. A. Gharala (Associate Professor of History), Nine completed the thesis research and writing, which earned an Outstanding Senior Honors Thesis Award and the inaugural Guenther Peace and Justice Award. This new award encourages deep research into, and future careers that address, the paramount ethical issues facing our global community today. Nine's research on the past, present, and future of practitioners combined historical sources, analysis of contemporary artworks, and family history to create a thought-provoking senior thesis. Nine is pictured here providing comment at a History lecture on piracy in the Philippines. Pagbati!