Virginie Rey
Virginie received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Melbourne and her research interests are Islam, postcolonial studies, design and visual culture. Virginie's Faculty Sponsor is Victoria Bernal.

Erkan Saka
Erkan recieved his Ph.D in Anthropology from Rice University, Houston, TX.
Research Interest: Erkan's academic focus is primarily on cryptocurrency among Turkish entrepreneurs and coders who recently moved to Silicon Valley.
Erkan's Faculty Sponsor is George Marcus.

Benjamin Hegarty
Education: Ph.D. History (2017), Australian National University (Canberra, AU)
Benjamin's research explores the globalization of 'transgender' and its translations in Indonesia from the late 1960s onwards. The research articulates everyday experiences and encounters during this period as they relate to three main areas. A) Transnational capitalism and the market. B) Emergent sex work economies and queer intimacy. C) Mass-media, consumerism and liberalism. He locates these experiences within the history of medical and social theoretical models of knowing sex and sexuality. Ben's Faculty Sponsor is Tom Boellstorff.

Laura Kalba
Education: Ph.D. History (2008), University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA)
Research Interest: Laura is a historian of modern visual culture who focuses on the intersection of economics, culture, accessibility, and technology.
She is the recipient of an ACLS Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowship for her book project Currencies: Symbolism and Signification in the Golden Age of Finance Capital. Focusing on Great Britain, France, and their overlapping spheres of influence, it investigates how images, objects, and places enacted and encoded changing understandings of economic value from the railway mania of the 1840s to the First World War. Excited by the prospect of engaging with other scholars interested in the intersection of economics, culture, and technology, she chose UC Irvine's Department of Anthropology for her residency. She looks forward to getting to know the department's faculty, graduate students, and other interdisciplinary interlopers on campus. Laura's Principal Investigator is Bill Maurer.

Saskia Simon
Education: Ph.D., Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium, 2015
Research Interest: Ethnography of violence, social movements, Guatemala, Belgium
With an M.A. in History (2007), a University Certificate in Philosophy (2007), an M.A. in Sciences of Religions (2009) and a Ph.D. in Political and Social Sciences (2015), Saskia's multidisciplinary education gave her the opportunity to use the tool-kits of different disciplines. Her research interests lie at the intersection of socio-anthropology of social movements, political studies of participation and ethnography of violence. 
Saskia's Principal Investigator is Bill Maurer.