Associate Professor in History, Santa Monica College


I am a world historian who specializes in Filipino cultural history, Southeast Asia, Micronesia, the history of new media, Asian Pacific American studies, the oral epic genre, gender and sexuality, and comparative colonialism. I completed my Ph.D. in South and Southeast Asian History at UCLA in 2013. My dissertation, "Collecting the People: Textualizing Epics in the Philippines from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First," examines the history of understanding, recording, and representing oral epics in the Philippines over the last five hundred years.

I have previously taught and continue to teach a wide variety of courses linked to my research and graduate training. This includes survey courses on world, Asian, and American history as well as more specialized upper division and seminar courses at Santa Monica College, UCLA, CSU San Marcos, and Irvine Valley College.

I have had the privilege of practicing my craft outside of the printed page and beyond the classroom. My work with the K-12 students, parents, and community at large that make up the Filipino Cultural School nourishes my soul. My weekly segment on the KSCI program Kababayan Today, "Know History, Know Self," provides me an opportunity to share my passion with audiences terrestrial and virtual. 

Information on all of this and more, including my curriculum vitae, links to organizations with which I am affiliated, resources for students, and contact information, can be found on this site's various pages. All photographs displayed here come from my personal archive, the product of my travels in the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere.