After finishing his PhD in East Asian Languages and Cultures at the U of I in August, Mark Frank took up the position of Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer in the Environmental Humanities at Yale University for 2020-2021.

Mark said that this is primarily a research position that would afford him the time and resources to develop his first book, but he is also teaching a course at Yale in the spring and doing some graduate teaching both semesters.

Quote: I’m grateful to my adviser, Shao Dan, for giving me the leeway to write a dissertation on what seemed like an unusual topic when I proposed it—an environmental history of Sino-Tibetan relations. I benefited tremendously from the intellectual atmosphere that Bob Morrissey, Rod Wilson, and other faculty established through pioneering programming in environmental history and the environmental humanities. I credit my department for giving me valuable teaching experience in my field as well as constant administrative support, and the graduate college for providing a much-needed break from teaching by way of a dissertation completion grant. I couldn’t have done it without all these factors coming together, although, of course, my quest for a tenure-track job is far from over.