Boyd Ruamcharoen

Boyd Ruamcharoen is a historian who brings together environmental history, the history of science and technology, and the history of the U.S. empire in the twentieth century. He also engages with science and technology studies (STS) and media studies. His current book project, A Rotting Empire, traces a history of weatherable materials—i.e., materials that can withstand harsh environments—using it to tell a new story about the U.S. empire in the twentieth century. Designed for temperate climates by default, American materials and technologies rapidly decayed in the tropics. Electronics grew moldy, fabrics mildewed, and whole archives disintegrated. The book tracks how the United States sought to control processes of decomposition in its projection of power into a wider world—and how these more-than-human phenomena provided fertile ground for alternative worldmaking projects from postcolonial and environmentalist perspectives.

Boyd Ruamcharoen earned his PhD in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology, and Society (HASTS) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2025. His work has been supported by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, the Smithsonian Institution, the Science History Institute, the Taylor-Wei Dissertation Fellowship in the History of Meteorology, among other organizations. You can learn more about his work on his website: boydruamch.com.