Kamil Ahsan is a 4th-year doctoral student in History of Science and Medicine (HSHM) with a prior Ph.D. in Developmental Biology from the University of Chicago. Although my interests best fit under the umbrella of the environmental humanities, I’m an interdisciplinary scholar whose interests sit at the intersection of energy and labor history, intellectual history, literary theory, STS, and history of science. I’m the Chief Editor of South Asian Avant-Garde, as well as an essayist and critic. My work has appeared in NPR, The Nation, the LA Review of Books, Dissent, and The Baffler, among others.

As an interdisciplinary scholar, he works at the intersection of the public humanities, environmental history, intellectual history, history of science, energy and labor history, and literary criticism. His dissertation focuses on the specific historical contexts of reefs in regions—specifically Sri Lanka, Belize, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Philippines—that are, to varying degrees, truly peripheral to “global” reef science. It observes many actors, from fisheries, indigenous peoples, fossil fuel companies, and environmentalists, among others, to see how they have operated in tension and purpose with each other over the long 20th century to the present. He is the Chief Editor of the literary magazine South Asian Avant-Garde (SAAG), as well as an essayist and critic. His work has appeared in NPR, The Nation, L.A. Review of Books, The Baffler, Dissent, The Boston-Globe, among others.