Victor Seow is completing his Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages at Harvard University.  He specializes in the history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century China and Japan, with research interests in issues of energy, science and technology, the environment, business and labor, and state power.  His dissertation, "Coal Capital: Manchurian Energy Regimes and the Industrial Modern, 1907-1957," examines the history of the fossil fuel industry in northeast China and its rise under Japanese management and expertise in the first half of the twentieth century.  Through this, the project explores the role of energy and energy technologies in shaping Chinese and Japanese experiences with industrial modernity.