2023.

2022.

IR Tea Social with Dr. Jessica DiCarlo, Department of International Relations, University of British Columbia.

A granular view on the Belt and Road, guest lecture for Dr. Paul Evans, University of British Columbia.

Fundamentals of China course guest speaker on the BRI with Dr. Mike Lampton, Canada School of Public Service.

The Rise of the Infrastructure State Book Launch with Jessica DiCarlo, Charis Enns, Dinesh Paudel, Nick Jepson, and Seth Schindler, October 2022, Hosted by the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and the Institute for Asian Research at the University of British Columbia.

Retooling the Belt and Road Initiative: Digital Guidance for Better Outcomes, Expert Panel for the Asia Society Policy Institute and Launch of ASPI's Belt and Road digital toolkit, a multilingual safeguard guide for BRI stakeholders, with Danny Russell, Blake Berger, Jessica DiCarlo, Shawn Shieh, and Mary Kay Magistad.

The Belt and Road Initiative and Responses, graduate seminar guest for Dr. Paul Evans, University of British Columbia.

Miniatures, models, and marketing: Remaking the zone as global city through scalar spectacles, Conference of the Asian Borderlands Research Network, Seoul Korea, paper presentation on a double panel: Beyond Exception: The Chinese “zone” as export model across Asian borderlands” organized by Alessandro Rippa and Timothy Oakes, featuring presentations by Max Hirsch, Verena La Mela, Jessica DiCarlo, Darren Byler, Dorothy Tang, Galen Murton, Juan Zhang, and Ayesha Omer.

Everyday experiences of Chinese megaprojects, webinar for the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Center, Luang Prabang, Laos.

Global China in a multipolar world and on the ground, guest lecture for Darren Byler, Simon Fraser University.

Infrastructures of Urban Life Yet-to-Come, a double-panel at the AAS Annual Meetings, Organized by Courtney Whittekind (Harvard University) and Jessica DiCarlo (University of British Columbia), featuring presentations by Jessica DiCarlo, Pallavi Gupta, Dan Luo, Sarah Moser, Tim Oakes, Jesse Rodenbiker, Laurence Côté-Roy, Courtney Whitekind, Grace Yixian Zhou.

(Il)licit urbanism, eventuality, and the rhythms of life in a city yet-to-come, Panel: Urban life of cities yet to come, Association of Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Conference.

China’s changing role as a development actor and the ‘China model’ as discourse, guest lecture for Sara Shneiderman and Elsie Lewison, University of British Columbia.

Examining Chinese d/Development through the Laos-China Corridor, guest lecture for Andrew Grant, Boston College.

Beyond debt trapping: Encompassing accumulation, infrastructure, and China’s spatiotemporal fix, public lecture, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia.

Transforming mega-infrastructures: Unravelling mediations between local communities and regional powers, workshop, invited speaker.

2021.

2020.

Grounding global China in northern Laos: The making of the infrastructure frontier, University of Colorado Boulder, Doctoral dissertation defense (public talk).

Steel silk roads and the making of the infrastructure frontier, Invited talk for Roadwork Asia, dissertation presentation.

Corridorization, spectacle, and speculation: Reinventing zones of opportunity, Panel: Infrastructural transformations on China’s periphery, The 14th Pan-European Conference on International Relations: The Power Politics of Nature, September, paper presentation.

Grounding development finance and safeguards through land compensation on the Laos-China BRI corridor, Annual Conference on the Society for the Advancement of Socioeconomics, Panel: Development Finance in a Changing Global Context, paper presentation.

Governing infrastructure or infrastructural governing?, 15th Biennial Conference of the Nordic Association for China Studies at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, paper presentation.

Life and death on the tracks: Suspension, waiting, and intersecting temporalities of infrastructure, Infrastructural Times: A Workshop Exploring the Temporalities of Urban-Regional Infrastructure. Regional Studies Association Research Network on Infrastructural Regionalism, paper presentation.

Living the zone as city-in-the-making: Vision of modernity, space of exclusion, or another day at the office?, Third China Made Workshop: The Social Life of Chinese Infrastructures in Southeast Asia, paper presentation.

Behind the spectacle of the BRI: Historical connections and contemporary engagements, China-in-Asia lecture series, University of Oregon, invited lecture.

Chinese special economic zones in Southeast Asia, DC-based US-Mekong Caucus, invited expert presentation.

How does Laos deal with Chinese megaprojects? A discussion on the BRI with Jessica DiCarlo and IHE Delft's Susanne Schmeier, Asia Society Webcast, invited talk.

HKU Studio Laos: Strategic Landscape Planning for the Greater Mekong, The University of Hong Kong and Design for Conservation, project reviewer.

Geopolitical infrastructures and economic corridors, Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, Denver, postponed.

Off the rails, Asia Borderlands Conference, South Korea, postponed, conference paper.

Connecting Laos, Cultural Studies Series, Vientiane, Laos, invited lecture.

2019.

Regional integration through major economic corridor development, National Institute for Economic Research, Vientiane, Laos.

The promise of megaprojects on the Laos-China Corridor, Roadwork Asia workshop, University of  Zurich, invited speaker.

Railroaded: Land politics and priority projects, Global Development Policy Center, Boston University, Global China Colloquia speaker.

Defining the Laos-China Economic Corridor, Centre for Development and Environment, Vientiane, Laos, research presentation.

Models, planning and agrarian change in economic zones, Land Issues Working Group SEZ workshop, Vientiane, Laos, facilitator and invited speaker.

Train tracks, trade and tourism: Negotiating the Lao-China Corridor, International Workshop on the Belt and Road in Southeast and South Asia, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, invited speaker.

Infrastructure Frontiers: Examining the ‘China model’ of development, Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, Washington DC, conference paper.

Research agendas for the Laos-China Corridor, National Institute for Economic Research, Vientiane, Laos, presenter.

2018.

Fire & the American West, University of Colorado Boulder, guest lecture.

Left Coast Political Ecology workshop, University of California Berkeley.

The political ecology of mining on the Colorado Plateau, University of Colorado Boulder, guest lecture.

Human geography: An introduction to place, space and power, University of Colorado Boulder, guest lecture.

2017.

Society-environment and large-scale infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia, University of Colorado Boulder, guest lecture.

Adaptation and Recovery after the 2015 Nepal Earthquakes: A Smallholder Household Perspective, Research talk by Dr. Isha Ray and Dr. Robin Marsh on our inter-disciplinary project, University of California Berkeley. Available on YouTube.

Adaptation and recovery after the 2015 earthquakes: a smallholder perspective, Dolakha, Nepal, facilitator.

Water, water everywhere...Water politics, projects and pollution in rural China, University of Colorado Boulder, guest lecture.

Interdisciplinary political ecology masterclass with Bruno Latour, University of Tübingen, Germany.

Agroecological changes and the politics of access in post-earthquake Nepal, Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, Boston, speaker.

Geographies of Nepal, Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, Boston, panelist.

2016.

Cultivating cardamom: Post-disaster agro-ecological transformation in Nepal, Social Science BAHA Conference on Nepal and the Himalaya, Kathmandu, Nepal, speaker.

Post-disaster resilience and agro-ecological transition in Nepal, Forest Action, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Post-disaster agro-ecological change in the Himalaya, University of California Berkeley, Master’s thesis presentation.

Adoption of ICTs for early detection of breast and cervical cancers in LMICs, Consortium of Universities for Global Health Conference, San Francisco, poster presentation.

Information and communication technologies for breast and cervical cancer prevention, Global Development Conference, Berkeley, presentation.

Decolonizing education in the Himalaya, Berkeley, panel discussant.

2015-earlier.

Global health and NGOs in Asia, University of California Berkeley Public Health DeCal, 2015, invited talk.

Careers in environmental and resource economics, University of California Berkeley, October 2015, panel discussant.

Defining development, China Exploration and Research Society, Shangri-La, Yunnan China, 2013, invited talk.

Women and social enterprise, Shem Women’s Group, 2013, invited talk.

Development initiatives and trends in Tibet, School of International Training, Yunnan, China, 2013, invited talk.

Crafting arguments and compelling essays, Kelly Yang School, Hong Kong, 2010, invited teacher.

Gendered relations and conflict in Afghanistan, Pepperdine University, 2008, BA thesis presentation.

Beijing’s Safari: Perspectives from Africa, AEI, 2007.

Democratization & development in post-apartheid South Africa, Pepperdine University, 2006, fieldwork presentation.