Joshua is a PhD candidate in Ethnic Studies whose research interests are in Asian and Asian American studies, Disability Studies, History of Medicine, and Filipino American and Philippine studies, and Religious Studies. He is a recipient of the Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship and was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow and California State University Sally Casanova Scholar. His dissertation, “State of Insanity: Mental Illness and Medical Knowledge in the Philippines under American Rule, 1898-1946," traces how the interplay between colonial bureaucrats, Filipino elite physicians, patients, and institutions interdependently shaped knowledge and cultural perceptions of mental illness in the archipelago during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He previously chaired the Filipino & Philippine Studies Working Group at the Center for Southeast Asia Studies/Townsend Center for the Humanities. He currently serves on the Philippine Studies Group Advisory Board in the Association for Asian Studies.
Writing
“‘The Island of Living Hope’: Leprosy Eradication Publicity in the Late American Colonial Philippines.” Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, special issue on Health Messaging. (Forthcoming December 2025)
“Anacleto Palabay in the Metropole: Public Health, Migration, and Deportation in the Case of a Filipino Leprosy Patient.” Nursing Clio, November 3, 2022, https://nursingclio.org/2022/11/03/anacleto-palabay-in-the-metropole-pub....
Honors, Award, Fellowships
Short-Term Fellowship, The Newberry Library, Alternate, 2025
Research Grant, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2025
Research Grant, Center for Southeast Asia Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2025
Dissertation Research/Writing Award, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2025
Graduate Studies Enhancement Grant, Social Science Research Council, 2024
Engaged Humanities Grant, University of California Humanities Research Institute, Co-recipient, 2023
Research Grant, Center for Race and Gender, University of California, Berkeley, 2023
Graduate Studies Enhancement Grant, Social Science Research Council, 2022
Working Group Grant, Townsend Center for the Humanities, University of California, Berkeley, 2022
Research Grant, Asian American Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 2021
Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship, Graduate Division, University of California, Berkeley, 2021
Phi Beta Kappa, 2021
Research Experience
Visiting Research Associate, Institute of Philippine Culture, Ateneo de Manila University, Jan-Feb 2025
Graduate Student Researcher, Engaged Humanities Grant, University of California Humanities Research Institute, “Watsonville is In the Heart: Mapping a Recuperative History of Filipino Farmworkers," Summer 2023
Graduate Student Researcher, Peder Sather Grant Program, Peder Sather Center, "Exhuming Immigrant Voices From the Past: A Critical Archival Study of the Bancroft Library," Spring 2023
Graduate Student Researcher, Asian American Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 2022-23
Education
M.A., Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2023
B.A., History, magna cum laude, California State University, Long Beach, 2021
Advisor
Dr. Catherine Ceniza Choy
Asian American History; Disability Studies; History of Medicine; Philippine & Filipino American Studies; Religious Studies
