Doctoral Student Fellow
Doctoral Student, Department of Nutrition & Food Studies, and Public Health, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development
Hiʻilei Julia Kawehipuaʻakahaʻopulani Hobart is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Food Studies at New York University. She holds an M.A. in Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture from the Bard Graduate Center, an M.L.S. in Library Science and Archives Management from Pratt Institute, and a B.A. in English and Creative Writing from Colby College. She is broadly interested in indigenous history, temperature, and technology infrastructures. Her dissertation, entitled “Tropical Necessities: Ice, Territory, and Taste in Hawaiʻi” is a commodity history of comestible ice. In particular, the study examines the development of the taste for coldness and affective experiences of Hawaiʻi’s settler colonial society. She is the founder and organizer of the NYC-Pacific Studies Working Group and is currently guest editing a journal issue of Food, Culture, and Society on the food systems of Hawai‘i.