William Chiriguayo is a doctoral candidate in the history department at Harvard University. His work centers on the mechanisms and institutions that facilitated United States expansion across the North American continent, as well as institutional projections of American influence in the hemisphere and globally. His dissertation--an imperial, numismatic history of United States currency--examines how the production of money advanced the American imperial project. Broad in temporal and methodological scope, it expands the narratives from monetary history's current stewards--economists, anthropologists, and an array of historians--to reveal a more complete story of American money. In short, the project puts the money back in monetary history.

Before coming to Harvard, William was an advertising copywriter for a well-known international brand, and has worked as a ghost writer, editor, and public-relations consultant for prominent clients. His academic work incorporates this background in visual culture, the power of the image, and propaganda with his training as a historian.