Biography

Born and raised in Subang Jaya, Malaysia, I grew up enticed by nutritional programs in public schools. I honed my interest in state food programs through my senior thesis on historical conceptions of Malaysian food at Williams College, USA. After graduating with a BA in History and Computer Science, I conducted research on informal hawker economies, palm oil labour, and state milk projects at the ASEAN Research Centre, Asia School of Business, Kuala Lumpur. I am also a team member of the Malaysia Design Archive (MDA), a grassroots archive of Malaysian history and visual culture, where I coordinate programmes for community education. For my master’s program, I look to investigate the labour and political history of home economics education enacted by the Malaysian state in the 1950s and 1960s. I aim to examine the imposition of home economics’ logic of development and productivity on Malay women’s household practices, exploring the ways in which Malay women understood and contended with these ideas. I seek to apply my historical work toward better understanding and shaping contemporary food discourses, systems, and policies in Southeast Asia.

Previous Education

Williams College History, Computer Science