Chase Caldwell Smith

Chase Caldwell Smith is a PhD candidate and Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His research focuses on religious knowledge encounters between European missionaries and Nahua peoples in colonial Mexico (16th-17th centuries), integrating textual, visual, and material evidence.

His educational credentials include a BA in History from Cambridge (Double First-Class Honours), an MSt in Global and Imperial History from Oxford (Distinction), and an MA in History from UCLA. He is pursuing graduate certificates in Early Modern Studies, Digital Humanities, and Rare Books & Manuscripts.

• Institutional Affiliations: UCLA Latin American Institute, CMRS Center for Early Global Studies, British Society for the History of Science.
• Research Themes: Colonial knowledge production, missionary translation, hybrid material culture, transpacific networks, early modern Catholicism, and indigenous self-fashioning.
• Teaching: Courses on colonial Latin American history, medieval/early modern world history, Western civilization, and history of science.

His recent publications analyze the Philippine Inquisition and transpacific archives. His awards include the James R. Scobie Award, Clarendon Fund Scholarship, and multiple FLAS Fellowships for language training in Nahuatl, Indonesian, and Portuguese.

• Digital Humanities: Co-founder of the Global History Podcast, web specialist for Entre Las Aguas project, and lead for Jesuit earthquake visualization project.
• Service: Officer in UCLA's Medieval & Early Modern Students Association, Graduate Coordinator for the UCLA Pacific World Research Network, and editorial internships at Columbia University Press and W.W. Norton.