Timothy Y. Loh

| 罗宇乐 | تيموثي لوه |

I am a sociocultural and medical anthropologist-in-training in the Doctoral Program in HASTS (History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology, and Society) at MIT, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States. My current research focuses on deaf and signing communities in Jordan and the broader Middle East. In my doctoral work I hope to explore how advancements in assistive technologies of various kinds (medical-rehabilitative, like hearing aids and cochlear implants, and non-medical, like cellphones and mobile apps) affect how deaf people in Jordan conceive of themselves as deaf—or not—and the role of religion (both Christianity and Islam) in Jordanian interactions with Western biomedicine. As a hearing researcher of deaf communities, I am committed to reflexivity in writing about this topic. I am also interested in refugee and migrant movements in the Middle East, as well as the history and anthropology of Arab Christianity in historic Palestine, particularly in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. I am a Science, Religion, and Culture (SRC) Doctoral Fellow at Harvard Divinity School and a member of the VL2 Student Network at Gallaudet University, as well as of the American Anthropological Association.

I hold a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (Culture & Politics) and a Master of Arts in Arab Studies, both from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. At the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown, I studied with Rochelle Davis, Fida Adely, and Sylvia Önder, and took classes through the Consortium at Gallaudet in sociolinguistics and Deaf studies. I was also a Kathryn Davis Fellow for Peace (Arabic) in the summer of 2016. At MIT, my principal advisor is Stefan Helmreich, Elting E. Morison Professor of Anthropology. I am most influenced by the work of Michele Friedner, Laura Mauldin, Marcia Inhorn, Karen Nakamura, Sherine Hamdy, among others, and hope to produce work like theirs someday.

Before returning to academia, I worked for Collateral Repair Project through the MENAR Fellowship, taught Middle Eastern history and introductory Chinese at King’s Academy, and coordinated Project SHINE for the LEAP Program. In my free time (hah!), I sing with Boston Found. I was born and raised in Singapore, which I still call home. I am proficient in Levantine Arabic, American Sign Language (ASL), and Mandarin Chinese, and high-intermediate in French.

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Writing

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Teaching

Film

Thanks to Chris Walley and Chris Boebel's class, DV Lab: Documenting Science through Video and New Media, I have also dabbled in ethnographic film. A Different Medium was made in spring 2019, and focuses on hearing students of American Sign Language and how they negotiate their position as ethical learners of the language and their relationship and responsibilities to the Deaf community.

Curriculum Vitae

Loh Academic CV

Contact

You can reach me via email at timloh at mit dot edu or using the form below.


Want to learn more about getting a PhD in anthropology (especially at HASTS)? Please reach out! I recommend reading the following to learn more about graduate school: