People | 专家

Learn more about the academics and professionals who work at or with the Manchester China Institute.

Core academic and professional staff

Academic Advisory Board

MCI's academic advisory board provides external review and advice to the MCI leadership team on how its programs and events can best serve the MCI and University missions. It consists of five members: a Chair and one representative from each of the Humanities Faculty's four Schools. All work on China, but are not part of the MCI leadership. This positions them with both the expertise and distance to critically assess MCI activities. The five current Board members are:

Research associates

MCI postdoctoral research associates conduct world-class research in China studies, and are housed in MCI's Lee Building.

Scholars in residence

MCI boasts a collegial and intellectually stimulating atmosphere for the study of China. During their stay, Scholars in Residence participate in the research life of MCI: attending MCI research seminars, presenting their work, and working collaboratively with MCI-based researchers on academic outputs.

Research affiliates

MCI research affiliates include former research fellows and visiting scholars, forming part of our global research network on China.

Affiliated faculty

A list of Manchester China Institute affiliates:

  • Dr Elena Barabantseva - Politics, School of Social Sciences. Elena is a Senior Lecturer in Chinese International Relations. Her research interests lie at the intersection of borders, identity, migration, intimacy, and citizenship in the context of globalising China.
  • Dr Alison BrowneGeography, School of Environment Education and Development; Sustainable Consumption Institute. Alison is a Lecturer in Human Geography. She research interests include the everyday practices, governance and sustainability transitions of water, energy, waste and food in China, the UK, Europe and Australia.
  • Dr Elisa Gambino - Elisa's research focuses on Chinese economic engagement overseas. She is particularly interested in the internationalisation of Chinese capital, state-business relations in China’s political economy, and, more recently, Chinese intra-African trade
  • Dr Ping Gao - Global Development Institute, School of Environment, Education and Development. Ping is a Senior Lecturer in Information Systems. His research interest is ICT for development in China.
  • Dr Renfei GaoInternational Business, Alliance Manchester Business School. Renfei is Presidential Fellow in Comparative and International Business. His research interests include behavioural strategy, international business, and cooperate governance, with a particular focus on China.
  • Dr Yong Han - Law, School of Social Sciences. Yong is a Lecturer in Commercial Law. His research interests are English commercial and private law, the contemporary relevance of aspects of Chinese legal tradition, and the Chinese legal system.
  • Dr Xia Han is Lecturer in International Business at the Alliance Manchester Business School. Her research interests include international business and strategy, with focus on the international expansion of Chinese firms.
  • Mr William Hebenton - Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice, School of Law. Bill is a senior lecturer in criminology. His main interests are in comparative research on 'national' criminologies; crime and punishment in China and the Greater China region (Taiwan); regulation of sexual offenders in the community.
  • Prof Richard Heeks - Global Development Institute, School of Environment, Education and Development. Richard is a Professor of Digital Development and his research specialisms include digital development, ICT4D, digital economy, digital labour, data justice and China’s digital expansion.
  • Dr Deljana Iossifova - Architecture, School of Environment, Education and Development. Deljana is a Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies. She is interested in the complex processes of spatial, social and technological coevolution in the context of rapidly urbanising China and wider East Asia.
  • Prof Yaojun Li - Sociology, School of Social Sciences. Yaojun is a Professor of Social Change. His research mostly focuses on social mobility and social stratification in Britain, China and the USA as well as social capital and wellbeing in Britain, China, Australia and the USA. His interests also include generosity in Britain and immigrant integration in Britain and the USA.
  • Dr Miguel Antonio Lim - Education, School of Environment, Education and Development. Miguel is a Senior Lecturer in Education with special focus on International Development. He is particularly interested in issues around transnational and international higher education.
  • Dr Jenna Mittelmeier - Education, School of Environment, Education and Development. Jenna is a Lecturer in International Education located in the Manchester Institute of Education. Her research expertise focuses broadly on the internationalisation of higher education. She's particularly interested in international students' transition experiences, pedagogies with international students, and curriculum internationalisation.
  • Prof Khalid Nadvi - International Development, School of Environment Education and Development; Global Development Institute. Khalid is a Political Economist specialising in issues relating to trade and industrial development. In particular, his work has focused on small enterprise clusters, global value chains and production networks, global standards, corporate social responsibility and technological upgrading.
  • Dr Ed Pulford - Chinese Studies, School of Arts, Languages and Cultures. Ed is a lecturer in Chinese studies and primarily an anthropologist with research interests in the past and present of socialism, transnational and cross-border connections across Asia, and northeast Asian indigenous peoples.
  • Dr Gregory Adam Scott - Chinese Studies, School of Arts, Languages and Cultures. Gregory is a Lecturer in Chinese Culture and History. His main research interest is in the history of late-Imperial and modern China up to the 1960s, especially cultural, religious, ideological, social, and technological history.
  • Prof Philip Shapira - Innovation Management and Policy, Alliance Manchester Business School. Phil is a Professor of Innovation Management and Policy with the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIOIR). His main research interests are science, technology and innovation management policy, regional innovation, and evaluation.
  • Dr David R. Stroup - Politics, School of Social Sciences. David is a lecturer of Chinese politics who focuses on nationalism, ethnic politics, and authoritarian state-society relations in China. In particular, his research focuses on everyday ethnic politics in urban Hui Muslim communities.
  • Dr Pei SunInternational Business, Alliance Manchester Business School. Pei is a professor and chair of international business. His research interests include corporate governance and nonmarket strategy, with a particular focus on how foreign and domestic firms manage and exploit institutional complexity and changes in China and how their strategies and corporate governance arrangements impact upon firm outcomes, stakeholders, and wider society.
  • Dr Rian Thum - History, School of Arts, Languages, and Cultures. Rian is a Senior Lecturer in Chinese History. His research focuses on the historical anthropology of Muslim communities in China, including Uyghurs and Hui, with attention to China-India connections, Sino-Muslim diasporas, assimilationist colonialism, book circulation, mobility, and non-traditional archives.
  • Dr Xiaobing Wang - Economics, School of Social Sciences. Xiaobing is a Senior Lecturer in the economics of China. His research interests include labour economics, migration and urban-rural divide, with a focus on China.
  • Dr Arkadiusz Wisniowski - Social Statistics, School of Social Sciences. Arkadiusz works on developing statistical methods for modelling and forecasting complex social processes, with a particular focus on migration and mobility, and combining various sources of data.
  • Prof Cecilia Wong - Planning, Property and Environmental Management, School of Environment, Education and Development. Cecilia is Professor of Spatial Planning. Her research interests include policy monitoring and spatial analysis, strategic planning, and urban and regional development policies.
  • Dr Francesca Young Kaufman - East Asian History, School of Arts, Languages and Culture. Francesca's research focuses on the intersection of culture, history, and memory in China after 1989. She uses an interdisciplinary methodology combining cultural history and film and visual studies to explore the politics of representation in Chinese cinema and art at the end of the twentieth century.
  • Dr Xia Han - International Business, Alliance Manchester Business School. Xia lectures in International Business at Manchester Business School. Her research interests include international business and strategy, with a focus on the international expansion of Chinese firms.
  • Dr Amy ZhangPlanning, Property and Environmental Management, School of Environment, Education and Development. Amy is a Lecturer in Urban Planning. Her research focuses on urban politics and governance, urban knowledge and policy mobilities, postcolonial urban theory, and state-society relations of China.
  • Dr Yawei Zhao – Geography, School of Environment Education and Development. Yawei is a Lecturer in Socio-Cultural Geography. Her research interests include technology, experience-scape, urban (in)formality, and the intersection of lifestyle migration and urbanization.
  • Prof Yang-Wen Zheng - Chinese History, School of Arts, Languages and Cultures. Yangwen is a Professor of Chinese History. Trained as an economic historian, her research interests developed into studying Sino-foreign interaction through the lens of foreign goods/things indigenised in China. Other research areas include Asian naming practices, China's relations with Southeast Asia and the Asian Cold War.
  • Dr Qingna Zhou - Global Development Institute, School of Environment, Education and Development. Qingna is a Senior Tutor in Human and Digital Development and her research interests include digital transformation, digital platform and China’s digital expansion.