History Department

Rylee Carrillo-Waggoner is a first-year PhD student whose research identifies how networks of infrastructure (roadways, agriculture, water, mining, railways, etc) built in the twentieth century in the Southwest United States function as colonial apparatuses that facilitate international trade and racial capitalism and that reflect the region’s layered colonial histories. Prior to attending UC Davis, Rylee completed a master’s in Historical Studies at the New School for Social Research with graduate minors in Capitalism Studies and Critical Perspectives on Democratic Anti-colonialism. They were also a graduate fellow at the Heilbroner Institute for Capitalism Studies and received the Outstanding Master’s Student Award for Historical Studies. They completed their B.A. at Columbia University in Comparative Literature, for which they recieved Departmental Honors.