Kayla Wilford

Kayla Wilford smiling in a dark jacket at night, standing outdoors near water with colorful holiday lights behind.
kaylawilford@g.harvard.edu

Kayla Wilford entered the PhD program at Harvard in 2025, specializing in the social and cultural history of early-modern Japan. Her scholarly interests lie in the writing of historical imagination, focused on stories of the silenced, oppressed, and illiterate, and the process of how historians police the border between what is "known" and what is "fiction".

She was born and raised on the West Coast of Canada, and received her B.A. in Honours History from the University of British Columbia. Outside of the archives she enjoys a game of D&D, crocheting slightly crooked scarves, and reading just about anything at all.