Jessica Pena

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Jessica Pena

Graduate Student

Email: jdpena89@g.ucla.edu

Curriculum Vitae
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Biography

Jessica Peña is a History PhD student at UCLA. Her research focuses on feminist activism in post-war Japan, particularly during the U.S. Occupation of Japan 1945 – 1952. Born and raised in New York, she completed her M.A. in World History with a concentration in U.S.- Japanese Relations at the City College of New York. At the University of California, Los Angeles she completed a second Masters Degree in East Asian Studies before entering the Ph.D program in History in the Fall of 2022.

Current/Former HGSA Member

Field of Study

Japan

Subfield

Postwar Feminist Activism

Publications

Awards & Grants

  • 2022 Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship
  • 2021 The Sasakawa Graduate Fellowship for Pre-Dissertation Research
  • 2020 The Graduate Opportunity Fellowship (GOFP)
  • 2015, 2016 The Barbara Brooks Award for an Outstanding Paper in East Asian History
  • 2011 Phi Theta Alpha

Conference Presentations

  • “Becoming the Sun: The Suffrage Movement & Feminist Activism during the U.S. Occupation of Japan (1945-1952)”, The Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies Graduate Student Conference 2023: Transgression, April 18, 2023

Advisor(s)

William Marotti

Degrees

  • M.A. in East Asian Studies, 2022, UCLA – Los Angeles, CA
  • M.A. in World History, Concentration in US-Japanese Relations, 2016, CUNY City College – New York, NY
  • B.A. in Interdisciplinary Japanese Studies, Minors in History and Asian Studies, 2011, SUNY Potsdam – Potsdam, NY