Alena Alamgir

Dr. Alena Alamgir is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Technical Communication in the Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) Department at Georgia Tech. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Rutgers University (2014) and an MA in English and French Linguistics from Palacký University (1997). Her research focuses on labor migration in state socialist systems, globalization, and the intersection of race, gender, and political economy in East-Central Europe and Vietnam.

Dr. Alamgir teaches technical communication courses at both undergraduate (MSE 1111, 3021, 4022, 4420) and graduate levels (MSE 6754, 8200), and organizes fellowship application workshops. Under her mentorship, MSE students have secured prestigious awards like NSF GRFP, NDSEG, and JPMorgan AI Fellowships. She previously served as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford’s St. Antony’s College, investigating Cold War-era labor exchanges between socialist and postcolonial nations.

Her research has produced 20+ peer-reviewed articles, with recent works exploring Vietnamese migrant workers in Czechoslovakia (2023), socialist urban architecture in Vietnam (2023), and transnational labor control mechanisms (2020). Awards include the ASA’s Theda Skocpol Dissertation Prize (2015) and multiple fellowships from institutions like the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (France).

Alamgir’s work bridges historical sociology and migration studies, emphasizing how Cold War-era labor policies shaped contemporary global inequalities. She actively reviews for journals like Slavic Review and participates in international conferences such as the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN).