Nicole Yung Liao

Nicole Yung Liao

First Name: 
Nicole Yung
Last Name: 
Liao
Title: 
PhD Candidate (she/her)
Biography : 

Honours, Awards and Grants

  • 2025-2027: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship
  • 2025-2026: Beckman Center Short-Term Research Fellowship, Science History Institute (forthcoming)
  • 2025-2026: The Huntington Museum, Travel Grant for Study Abroad
  • 2025-2026: The Image Centre, Penny Rubinoff Research Fellowship, Toronto Metropolitan University
  • 2024-2025: The Centre for the Study of France and the Francophone World, Doctoral Research Grant, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto

People Type:

Research Area:

Areas of Interest: 
  • Science and technology studies
  • History of colour
  • Cinema studies
  • 19th century
  • Biopolitics
  • Colonial History

Program:

Cohort:

Dissertation Title: 
“Truth to Nature”: Synthetic Colour, Biology and Photo Media in the 19th Century
Dissertation Supervisors: 
Jordan Bear
Dissertation Description: 

This dissertation will foreground the importance of colour in theories of evolution and biology as scientists sought to reveal, magnify and animate life processes in the latter half of the 19th century.

Presentations: 
“The Chemistry of Colour and the Chemistry of Life”: Dyes, Microbes and Medicine in the German Empire.” 14th International Conference on the History of Chemistry: Chemistry and Capitalism. European Chemical Society, Uni. of Valencia, June 11-14, 2025
“Do fish see colour? Early photo media and physiological studies in animal vision.” Interspecies Interactions in the Visual Arts (1550-1914), Le Laboratoire de Recherche Historique Rhône-Alpes (LARHRA) Lyon, May 21-23, 2025
“Animal-Mineral-Vegetable Presence in the Films of Mary Field and Percy Smith.” Movers and Shapers, Animal History Group, online, June 27-28, 2024
“Malaria, Microbes and Micro-imaging: Detecting the Life of Germs in Fin-de-Siecle France.” Conceptualizing Uncertainty: Reflections on Risk and Disaster in France and the Francophone World (1600-present), University of Toronto, April 15-16, 2024
“Cinematic Perception and the Undoing of Subjectivity: Yokomitsu Riichi’s Shanghai.” 8th Annual Wolleson Memorial: “Matrix of Mobility: Networks of Objects and Exchange” Symposium, Department of Art History, University of Toronto, March 4, 2021
Administrative Service: 
Graduate Union of Students of Art (GUStA) committee member – Social Events and Workshop Coordinator | September 2022 – 2024
University of Toronto Quality Assurance Process (UTQAP) External Review – Department of Art History Graduate Student Representative | February 2024
Graduate Union of Students of Art (GUStA) Anti-Racism Art History Bibliographic Database Project, Database Administrator | May 2021 – August 2021
Department of Art History Writing Group, Student Facilitator | 2020 – 2021
Graduate Union of Students of Art (GUStA) Anti-Racism Reading Group | September 2020 – May 2021

Campus: