The Washington University in St. Louis Department of History congratulates its five PhD graduates of 2026. Ruochen Chen, Richard Harrod, Kim Lacey, Bridget Kelly, and Josiah Schmidt are beginning new chapters at universities and cultural institutions across the United States and abroad.
Ruochen Chen
Visiting Lecturer of History, Duke Kunshan University
Kunshan, Jiangsu, China
Ruochen Chen joins Duke Kunshan University as a Visiting Lecturer of History, where he will continue his research and teaching in modern Chinese history. His scholarship examines the intersection of state formation, technological exchange, and global maritime interactions across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
His dissertation, From Natural Barrier to National Symbol: Technologies, State-Building, and the Remaking of the Yangzi River, 1843–1937, explores the Yangzi River—the longest waterway in China and an essential channel for irrigation and trade—underwent a profound, multi-dimensional transformation and ultimately influenced the formation of modern China. Chen is currently revising the dissertation into a book manuscript.
His research has received support from several fellowships and grants, including the Luce/ACLS Travel Grant in China Studies, the AAS-Gale Non-Residential Fellowship, the AAS East and Inner Asia Council Small Grant, and the Stanford East Asia Library Travel Grant.
Richard Harrod
Assistant Professor of History, United Arab Emirates University
Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
Richard Harrod joins United Arab Emirates University as an Assistant Professor of History; his dissertation, Oil, Onions, and Education: A Social History of Development in Oman from the 1950s to the 1980s, examines the dramatic social and economic changes that accompanied the search for and exploitation of oil in Oman.
Harrod has received support from the Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation, the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, New York University Abu Dhabi, The Center for Arabic Studies Abroad, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC), and the US Fulbright Research Program. During his final year at WashU, Harrod was a Graduate Student Fellow at the Center for the Humanities. He is the author of “The Sulṭān’s Treatise: Development and Contending Visions of Oman’s Future in the Late-Nineteen Sixties” published in The Journal of Arabian Studies.
His second journal article, “The Making of the Duruʿ Working Class: Empire, Oil, and Resistance in Fahud, Oman from the 1950s to the 1970s” has been published in Middle East Critique. It is part of an upcoming special issue entitled: “Situating the Gulf’s Anti-Imperialist Currents in History and Theory.”
Kim Lacey
Moon Family Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Kim Lacey begins a Moon Family Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania's James Joo-Jin Kim Center for Korean Studies for the 2026–27 academic year. The fellowship will support her continued research, teaching, and intellectual engagement in Korean studies.
Her dissertation, Koreitsy: Ethnic Koreans in the Former Soviet Republics, 1863–Present, examines the experiences of Korean communities across the former Soviet republics and the ways successive generations have developed localized understandings of identity and belonging. Based on more than two years of ethnographic fieldwork and archival research in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Japan, South Korea, and the United States, the project considers displacement, migration, community, and everyday life across 160 years of history.
Lacey's research has been supported by competitive awards including including the Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellowship, the Title VIII Research Award, the Cohen-Tucker Dissertation Research Fellowship, the Korea Foundation Scholarship, the Japan Foundation Fellowship. She also recently received a Harvard-Yenching Library Grant and American Historical Association's Bernadotte E. Schmitt Research Grant. Lacey was also a 2025–26 Graduate Student Fellow at WashU's Center for the Humanities, where her fellowship project focused on Koreitsy.
Bridget Kelly
Instructor of African American Studies, University of South Carolina
Columbia, South Carolina
Bridget Kelly joins the University of South Carolina as an Instructor of African American Studies; her dissertation, Harlem on Probation: The Uprising of 1943, Black Self-Determination, and the Rise of Probationary Citizenship, examines the 1943 Harlem uprising and the development of probation as a mechanism for regulating Black communities and citizenship.
She is the author of “‘I Get So Mad Cause We Ain’t Got No Freedom’: Black Women, Rage, and the Harlem Uprising of 1943” published in the Journal of Urban History. Another article was published in Journal of African American History titled, “The Materiality of Belonging: Black Property Claims after the Civil War.” At the University of South Carolina, Kelly teaches Freedom Papers, a study of America’s founding documents which asks how the experiences of African Americans across U.S. history have and continue to shape the nation’s values, norms, and ideals.
Josiah Schmidt
Director of Literary Arts, Jewish Community Center of St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
Josiah Schmidt has begun a new role as Director of Literary Arts at the Jewish Community Center of St. Louis, where he helps lead programming for the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival and Speaker Series. The position brings together his background in history, research, and genealogy.
His dissertation, Entangled Landscapes and Political Projects: Germans and Americans in Networks of Ecology, Economy, and Ideology in the Long Eighteenth Century, explores the interconnected environmental, economic, and ideological relationships linking German and American communities in the long eighteenth century.
He also continues his work as a historian and genealogist. In 2026, Schmidt presented a program for the St. Louis Genealogical Society on free online resources for German genealogy, reflecting his longstanding interest in connecting historical scholarship with public audiences.
The History PhD Program at Washington University in St. Louis is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2026!
Join us on September 19, 2026, from 9:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. as we celebrate a century of history, scholarship, and community.
