John T. Chen

John Chen is a doctoral candidate in History at Columbia University. His dissertation examines knowledge transformation among Chinese Muslims and their counterparts throughout the Islamic world, particularly Egypt, in the early to mid-twentieth century. He has published a preliminary article on this topic in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. His research interests lie at the intersection of Islamic history, history of science, and the transnational intellectual history of the Middle East and East Asia. Before starting at Columbia, he studied at the American University in Cairo’s Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) with the support of a Fulbright fellowship, received additional training in translation with the support of a Critical Language Enhancement Award, and worked as a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. A native of Massachusetts, he received his B.A. in History and Arabic from Harvard University.