Faculty Directory

Maya K. Peterson
  • Title
    • Assistant Professor
  • Division Humanities Division
  • Department
    • History Department
  • Affiliations Environmental Studies Department
  • Phone
    831-459-4915 (office), 831-459-2555 (message)
  • Email
  • Office Location 216 Stevenson College
  • Office Hours Fall 2017: TBD
  • Mail Stop Stevenson Academic Services
  • Mailing Address
    • 1156 High Street
    • Santa Cruz CA 95064
  • Faculty Areas of Expertise Environmental History, History, Water, Colonialism, European Studies, History of Science, Russia, Soviet and Post Soviet Studies, Environmental Studies
  • Courses Taught History 100: Historical Skills and Methods; HIS 152 Trade and Travel on the Silk Roads; HIS 173A Medieval Russia; HIS 173B Imperial Russia, 1696-1917; HIS 173C The Soviet Union; HIS 177 Environment in the 19th Century; HIS 196V The Soviet Experience; HIS 196W Brave New World: Visions of Utopia in the Soviet Union; HIS 251A Readings in Modern European History: Environment and Technology; HIS 280A and 280B Graduate Proseminars: Teaching Pedagogy and Presentations and Grant Writing

Summary of Expertise

Russian History
European History of the 19th and 20th centuries
Environmental History
Central Asia

Research Interests

Imperial Russian and Soviet history
Comparative empire/colonialism
Central Asian history
Water
Environmental History
History of engineering
History of frontiers and borderlands

Biography, Education and Training

Ph.D. in History, Harvard University, 2011
A.M. in Regional Studies: Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, Harvard University, 2005
B.A. with High Honors in History (major), Russian (minor), and German Studies (concentration), Swarthmore College, 2002

Honors, Awards and Grants

  • UCSC IHR Faculty Fellowship, 2016
  • Carson Center Fellowship, 2012-13 (Rachel Carson Center, LMU, Munich, Germany)                            
  • College Fellowship, 2011-12 (Dept. of the History of Science, Harvard University)
  • Social Science Research Council Eurasia Dissertation Support Fellowship, 2010-11
  • Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, 2008-09
  • Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship, 2008-09
  • Social Science Research Council Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship, 2007
  • Merle Fainsod Prize, 2005-06; 2003-04 (Harvard University)
  • Roger Martin Travel and Research Grant, 2005-06 (Harvard University)
  • Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship (Russian), 2004-05; 2003-04
  • Abby and George O'Neill Graduate Research Travel Grant, 2004 (Harvard University)
  • Fulbright IIE Fellowship, 2002-03 (Berlin, Germany)  
  • Phi Beta Kappa, 2002                                                                                

Selected Publications

"US to USSR: American Experts, Irrigation, and Cotton in Soviet Central Asia, 1929-32," Environmental History 21, 3 (2016): 442-466.

"Engineering Empire: Russian and Foreign Hydraulic Experts in Central Asia, 1887-1917." Cahiers du Monde Russe, Special Issue: “Land, soil and people. Agricultural expertise and power (19th-20th centuries),” 57, 1 (January-March 2016): 125-146

Teaching Interests

Russian and Soviet history
Modern European history
Environmental History
History of Science and Technology
History of the Silk Roads
Comparative empire/colonialism
Comparative borderlands

Last modified: August 30, 2017 128.114.113.73