Hongdeng Gao

Hongdeng Gao is an Assistant Professor of History at Williams College specializing in Asian American history and the modern United States. She joined Williams in 2025 and teaches undergraduate courses on Asian American history, U.S. immigration history, and thematic seminars on science/medicine and Chinatowns.

Her educational background includes:

• B.A. from Pomona College (2015)
• M.A. from Columbia University (2018)
• M.Phil. from Columbia University (2019)
• Ph.D. from Columbia University (2023)

Gao's research examines race, migration, and public health in urban spaces through the lens of Cold War geopolitics and grassroots activism. Her current book project Remaking American Medicine investigates how cross-ethnic community efforts improved healthcare access for Chinese New Yorkers while connecting Asian American experiences to broader Black and Latinx health movements. She utilizes multi-sited archives and rare oral histories with health professionals.

Her publications reveal consistent focus on urban health equity and ethnic community spaces, particularly in New York and San Francisco. Through analyses of hospital activism, Chinatown development, and cultural food mapping, her work highlights how marginalized groups navigated structural barriers using community-based solutions.

Her research has received support from prestigious institutions:

• American Council of Learned Societies
• Consortium for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine
• Library of Congress
• Hoover Institution Library & Archives
• Historical Society of Pennsylvania
• University of Minnesota Libraries

As a faculty member, Gao advises history majors and teaches cross-listed courses including HIST/AAS/AMST 170 (Chinatowns), HIST/AAS/AMST 284 (Asian American History), and HIST/AAS/AMST 285 (U.S. Immigration History). Her prior postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard's Inequality in America Initiative informs her interdisciplinary approach to social justice scholarship.