William Chiriguayo is a doctoral candidate in the history department at Harvard University. His work centers on the mechanisms and institutions that facilitated United States expansion across the North American continent, as well as institutional projections of American influence in the hemisphere and globally. His dissertation--an imperial, numismatic history of United States currency--examines how the production of money advanced the American imperial project. Broad in temporal and methodological scope, it expands the narratives from monetary history's current stewards--economists, anthropologists, and an array of historians--to reveal a more complete story of American money. In short, the project puts the money back in monetary history.
Before coming to Harvard, William was an advertising copywriter for a well-known Fortune 100 brand, and has worked as a ghost writer, editor, and public-relations consultant for other prominent clients. His academic work incorporates his background in visual culture, legal history, financial institutions, and the power of the image with his training as a historian.
William is a committed and experienced educator. He's taught at every educational level--most recently at Harvard--where he's distinguished himself in earning various teaching awards. Most notably, he was the recipient of Harvard's prestigious History Prize Instructorship, which afforded him the privilege and honor of teaching a semester-long course--of his own design, and in the position of lead instructor--on the subject of his reseach. He has been the recipient of numerous, prominent fellowships for his interdisciplinary and transnational work.
