School of Humanities and Sciences
Showing 51-100 of 292 Results
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Hyun Suk Park 朴賢淑 (she/her)
Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures
BioMy primary field of research is Korean literature and culture from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century. As a scholar of Korean literature both in Korean and literary Sinitic (hanmun 漢文) by training, my research is deeply engaged with the East Asian cultural tradition. My research interests include the intersections between literature and performance, the history of gender and sexuality, the comparative history of slavery, and the cultural history of natural disasters in early modern East Asia and beyond.
My first book manuscript, Government Courtesans in Military Uniforms: State Slavery, Gender, and Performance in Chosŏn Korea, 1392–1910 (forthcoming; Harvard University Asia Center, 2027), explores the cultural production of government courtesans (kwan’gi 官妓) at the nexus of the studies of slavery, gender, and performance in Korean literature. In this work, I illuminate how the spectacular performances of courtesans, offered in state events, were involved in the constitution and reproduction of state power of Chosŏn. I also examine how courtesan performances represent state power as multivalent and unstable through the frequent incorporation of heterogeneous elements, as exemplified by martial entertainment offered by cross-dressing courtesans.
I am currently in the process of designing a new research project that explores the same-sex intimacy created by the practice of letter writing between the literati of Chosŏn and Qing outside of diplomatic venues. I am also developing a long-term research project in environmental humanities that focuses on climate disasters in seventeenth-century East Asia and explores the new methodologies of writing a literary and cultural history that considers climate as an actant.
Before joining Stanford in 2025, I have taught at UCLA (2018–2025), Seoul National University (2016–2018), and UC Berkeley (2013–2016). -
Grant Parker
Associate Professor of Classics, of African and African American Studies and, by courtesy, of Comparative Literature
BioGrant Parker joined Stanford in 2006, having taught previously at Duke University. He has long researched and taught Latin literature and Roman imperial culture, e.g. The Making of Roman India (2008). Other publications include The Agony of Asar: a former slave's defence of slavery, 1742 (2001) and, as editor, South Africa, Greece, Rome: classical confrontations (2017). Since 2025 he has also taught African Studies in the newly constituted Department of African and African American Studies. As a comparative global humanist, his interest in monuments, collective memory and their media is expressed by several articles on obelisks and statues. Another ongoing theme is enslavement and its aftermaths, ancient and modern. Current work engages monument-mindedness in Southern Africa as well as the global reception of Virgil's poetry. His many roles on campus have included the Stanford Archaeology Center, the Center for African Studies, and Residential Education.
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Patricia Parker
Margery Bailey Professor of English and Dramatic Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature
BioPatricia Parker received her M.A. in English at the University of Toronto and taught for three years in Tanzania, whose President Julius Nyerere also translated Shakespeare into Kiswahili. After teaching at the University of East Africa, she completed her Ph.D. at Yale, in Comparative Literature, and taught for 11 years at the University of Toronto. First invited to Stanford as a Visiting Professor in 1986, she came to Stanford permanently in 1988 as a Professor in both English and Comparative Literature. She has also taught as a Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley and as a member of the core faculty at the School of Criticism and Theory (Cornell University, 1998). She is the author of four books (Inescapable Romance, a study of romance from Ariosto to Wallace Stevens; Literary Fat Ladies: Rhetoric, Gender, Property; Shakespeare from the Margins; and Shakespearean Intersections) and co-editor of five collections of essays on criticism, theory, and cultural studies, including Shakespeare and the Question of Theory and Women, Race and Writing in the Early Modern Period. She has lectured widely in France, Germany, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, the Czech Republic, and other parts of the world, as well as at Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Chicago, Oxford, Cambridge, the Sorbonne, and other universities; as Gauss Seminar lecturer at Princeton, Shakespeare's Birthday lecturer at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Northrop Frye Professor lecturer at the University of Toronto, and Paul Gottschalk lecturer at Cornell University; and has served on the Advisory Board of the English Institute. In 2003-4, she organized an international conference and public festival at Stanford devoted to “Shakespeare in Asia.” She has also worked with students to create performance-based programs in the community. She currently teaches courses on Shakespeare (including Global Shakespeares), the Bible and Literature, Epic and Empire and other topics. In addition to books-in-progress on Shakespeare, rhetoric, race, and gender, she is the General Editor of the Stanford Global Shakespeare Encyclopedia, which will be released online as a global reference work free to anyone in the world with access to the internet.
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Quinn Mitsuko Parker
Ph.D. Student in Oceans, admitted Autumn 2023
Ph.D. Minor, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Research Assistant, OceansCurrent Research and Scholarly InterestsQuinn Parker studies social-ecological dynamics of small-scale fisheries, and their ties to gender equity, food security, and food sovereignty. She examines the cultural, socio-economic, and historical drivers that impact SSF governance, and how these governance models in turn affect resilience of and access to blue food systems.
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Suman Patra
Postdoctoral Scholar, Chemistry
BioDr. Suman Patra is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Chemistry at Stanford University, working under the mentorship of Prof. Edward I. Solomon. His research focuses on uncovering the mechanistic intricacies of non-coupled binuclear copper (NBC) enzymes, particularly tyramine β-monooxygenase (TBM), which catalyzes oxygen activation and selective C–H bond hydroxylation.His work integrates high-resolution spectroscopy, transient kinetics, and protein biochemistry to probe the formation, structure, and reactivity of short-lived copper-oxygen intermediates. As part of this effort, he performs cell culture and protein purification, enabling the isolation of active, recombinant copper enzymes for detailed spectroscopic and mechanistic studies. Through a multi-spectroscopic approach, primarily UV-Vis, CD, MCD, EXAFS, EPR, resonance Raman, and stopped-flow absorption spectroscopy, he investigates how the geometric and electronic structure of the active sites modulate reactivity and enable O₂ activation without direct Cu–Cu coupling.
Dr. Patra earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Kolkata, under the supervision of Prof. Abhishek Dey, where he developed iron porphyrin-based electrocatalysts for the selective reduction of CO₂. His research emphasized mechanistic analysis using electrochemical methods coupled with in situ spectro-electrochemistry to monitor redox transitions and catalytic intermediates under applied potentials. These studies were complemented by density functional theory (DFT) calculations, which he used to model key intermediates, protonation pathways, and redox energetics, thereby providing molecular-level insight into how second-sphere interactions and ligand environments influence catalytic behaviour. His integrative experimental–computational approach provided a detailed understanding of structure-function relationships in multi-electron CO₂ reduction.
The mechanistic perspective and technical skillset developed during his doctoral work, particularly in combining spectroscopy, electrochemistry, and computation, now form the foundation of his postdoctoral research. His current studies extend those same principles to more complex metalloenzyme systems, addressing similar core questions about the role of electronic structure, metal-ligand coordination, and local environment in controlling reactivity. His long-term goal is to bridge synthetic and biological catalysis through a mechanistic lens, contributing to the development of efficient, selective systems for small-molecule activation and sustainable energy transformations.
Dr. Patra received his M.Sc. in Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati after qualifying the national IIT-JAM examination and completed his B.Sc. in Chemistry at St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. Over the course of his academic training, he has cultivated a multidisciplinary research identity that spans coordination chemistry, spectroscopy, electrochemical catalysis, and theoretical modelling. His scientific vision centres on using spectroscopic and computational insight to guide the rational design of catalysts for environmentally relevant redox chemistry. -
Juan N. Pava
Research - Post-Bacc, Ethics In Society
BioJuan N. Pava is a Research Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), where his work focuses on AI governance, digital inclusion, and the political economy of emerging technologies, particularly in the Global South. His research examines how institutions can more equitably govern technological development, with current projects spanning low-resource languages, language digitization, AI sovereignty, and accessibility.
At Stanford HAI, Juan has contributed to research and institutional initiatives at the intersection of technology and social impact, including educational programming for civil society leaders and collaborative projects on inclusive AI development. He is also a Research Assistant at Stanford’s Human Trafficking Data Lab, where he co-authors research on legal and statistical frameworks surrounding labor exploitation and human trafficking.
Juan holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Economics from New York University and will begin the Master’s in International Policy program at Stanford University in 2026. Born and raised in Colombia, his broader interests lie in political economy, international development, and the application of normative political theory to institutional design and governance.
![Bran[don] Papineau](https://profiles.stanford.edu/proxy/api/cap/profiles/247069/resources/profilephoto/350x350.1731824285281.jpg)
