# Aaron Molnar Environmental Fellow: 2024-2026 PhD, History, University of British Columbia ![Professional headshot of a person wearing glasses](/sites/g/files/omnuum10846/files/styles/hwp_4_5__480x600/public/huce/files/41685301-ac20-4e63-ac2c-466238112969_1.jpeg?itok=8QnXiHGa) email *Aaron Molnar mobilizes paleoclimatology and archaeology with documentary sources to understand how the premodern state over time adapted to climate change in the Chinese-Mongolian steppe borderlands.* Aaron’s research interests focus on Goryeo Korea’s (918-1392) integration into the globalism of the Mongol Empire (1206-1368), the impact of climate variation on the premodern Korean Peninsula, and Chinese-Mongolian borderland relations. His dissertation explores how Koreans and their material culture were an operative component of the Mongols’ imperial project through the lens of human and material mobilities. The dissertation uses *materia medica,* travelogues, poetry, and archaeological finds alongside dynastic records to demonstrate an earlier and larger scale of Korean involvement in global integration. Other research published in the *Seoul Journal of Korean Studies* examines the confluence of climate variation, Mongol imperialism, and environmental change on the Korean Peninsula during the Goryeo period, while an article forthcoming in *Monumenta Serica* investigates the role of Mongols in the Ming Empire’s (1368-1644) imperial enterprise and the construction of their identity by the imperial state. As an Environmental Fellow, Aaron is working on his second book project investigating how the Mongol and Ming Empires cumulatively adapted to the Medieval Warm Period-Little Ice Age climate transition between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries in their eastern Eurasian steppe borderlands. It focuses on migration patterns as well as path-dependent policy initiatives responding to this period of climate destabilization, such as infrastructure expansion and military-agrarian colonialism. The project utilizes paleoclimatological, paleosedimentological, and archaeological sources with dynastic records, borderland governance manuals, and local gazetteers to emphasize continuity in climate adaptation and environmental impacts across imperial regime change. A last branch of the project maps settlement patterns onto changing borderland environments and their geographies during this climate transition. Aaron’s research aims to unite human and natural histories in the analysis of historical climate change. Faculty host: Mark C. Elliott, Faculty of Arts and Sciences - ## Alphabetical by Last Name [K-O](/alphabetical-last-name/k-o) - ## Fellows Status [Former](/fellows-status/former) - ## Role [Fellows](/role/fellows) - ## School [Faculty of Arts and Sciences](/school/faculty-arts-and-sciences)