Ruth Mostern

Dr. Ruth Mostern is a specialist in spatial and environmental history focusing on imperial China and the world. An interdisciplinary scholar with research interests bridging the humanities, social sciences, information science and environmental science, she has authored one book and edited another and has completed two major digital publications and eighteen articles. She has raised approximately $1.8 million in extramural funding and currently holds grants from both the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation.

Mostern's recent book, The Yellow River: A Natural and Unnatural History (Yale University Press), winner of the 2023 Joseph Levenson Prize from the Association for Asian Studies, tracks the long history of the human relationship with water and soil, and the consequences, at times disastrous, of ecological transformations that resulted from human decisions. This work underlines how governments consistently ignored the dynamic interrelationships of the river's varied ecosystems--grasslands, riparian forests, wetlands, and deserts--and the ecological and cultural impacts of their policies. She is creating a digital atlas that includes a GIS (a digital mapping system) and database of the dates and locations of disasters and civil engineering works in the river basin. This data-rich atlas will support interdisciplinary advances in the understanding of large-scale human-environmental impact. 

Mostern is also Principal Investigator of a collaborative initiative, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, to create a World-Historical Gazetteer that includes content and infrastructure for spatial linked open data to permit large-scale and long-term historical analysis and visualization.