Robert Diaz

Robert Diaz is a doctoral candidate whose research lies at the intersections of the history of U.S. foreign relations; science and technology studies; and childhood history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In his disseration, "Progress Marches on the Feet of Little Children: U.S. Imperialism in the Philippines and the Sciences of Human Development, 1898-1946," he argues that fluctuating scientific and social concepts of childhood were essential frameworks through which U.S. and Filipina/o officials shaped public welfare policies in the Philippines. Utilizing school assignments produced in the Philippines, Bureau of Insular Affairs documents, Pensionado records, photographs, journals, geneaological research, newspapers, and child development treatises, he demonstrates that for such officials, the development of Filipina/o children and, thereby, the nation, could be accomplished through mediation in obstetrics, pediatrics, nutrition, international exhibitions, behavior, and education.  At the same time, Filipina/o children lived anything but congruent and static lives, playing active roles in shaping these discourses and policies in ways that regularly conflicted with officials' expectations. His research has received support from the Houghton Library at Harvard University, the American Philosophical Society, and the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Michigan.

Robert earned his B.A.s in political science and history and his M.A. in history from the University of Texas at El Paso. In 2018, he was the youngest president elected to the board of the El Paso County Historical Society, a nonprofit archive and education center founded in 1954. Between 2019 and 2020, he served the Student Conservation Association/Americorps at Chamizal National Memorial in El Paso. Between 2021 and 2023, he was also a Graduate Student Research Assistant with ReConnect/ReCollect: Reparative Connections to Philippines Collections at the University of Michigan. He currently sits on the Graduate Committee for the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations. 

Fields of Study

• U.S. in the World
• Pacific World
• Science and Technology in Society
• Histories of childhood

Courses Taught

Graduate Student Instructor

• FA 2021 History of the U.S. West
• WN 2022 Minds and Brains in America
• FA 2022 The United States in the World
• WN 2023 Epidemics!