Nicole Newendorp

Nicole Newendorp

Interim Director of Undergraduate Studies
Lecturer on Social Studies
Nicole Newendorp profile photo

Dr. Newendorp is an anthropologist who studies migration and family life in Asia and the United States. She’s published two books based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork projects conducted in Cantonese in Hong Kong and the US. Her recent book, Chinese Senior Migrants and the Globalization of Retirement (Stanford University Press, 2020), explores how Chinese-born senior migrants make sense of their later-life relocation to the greater Boston area and places particular emphasis on how seniors’ memories of movement within and beyond China over past decades continue to influence their 21st century migration trajectories and aspirations for well-being. Her previous ethnography, Uneasy Reunions: Immigration, Citizenship, and Family Life in Post-1997 Hong Kong (Stanford University Press, 2008), was awarded the 2009 Francis L.K. Hsu Book Prize by the American Association of Anthropology’s Society for East Asian Anthropology. She has also published in International Migration, PoLAR: The Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Critical Asian Studies, Ageing International, and the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences. She was previously the founding Program Director for the Harvard Summer School Study Abroad Program in Hong Kong and has collaborated with Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies in their summer programming in Nafplio, Greece. Dr. Newendorp received a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Columbia University, an M.A. from Harvard University’s Regional Studies-East Asia Program, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University’s Department of Anthropology.

Dr. Newendorp has been teaching and advising students in Social Studies since 2004 and is currently serving as the Interim Director of Studies. She welcomes conversations with any students doing ethnographic fieldwork projects or with interests in migration or East Asian Studies. She’s also the primary contact in Social Studies for questions about senior theses, human subjects, research funding, advising assignments, secondary fields, and joint and dual degrees.


2023-24 Courses
Social Studies 99a. Tutorial — Senior Year (Fall) 
Social Studies 99b: Tutorial — Senior Year (Spring) 

Contact Information

William James Hall 380
p: 617-496-5819