Joshua D. Ralston is a Ph.D. student in medieval Chinese history. His interests broadly consist of the history of imperial examinations and education, kinship relations, and geographies of political influence in middle-period China. At U.C. Berkeley, his B.A. thesis examined regional participation in the 進士 jinshi exams and how regional exam success related to the attainment of high office in the Song political system.

At Princeton, he hopes to build upon the digital humanities techniques found in his earlier research and find innovative ways to incorporate modern methodologies with traditional text-based analysis.