People | 专家
Learn more about the academics and professionals who work at or with the Manchester China Institute.
Core academic and professional staff
Professor Peter Gries
Prof Gries is the founding Director of MCI and studies the political psychology of international affairs, with a focus on China and the United States.
Dr Charlotte Shi
Charlotte is the Institute Manager, leading MCI’s programming, events, and day-to-day operations.
Lorelei Baciu
Lorelei is MCI’s Engagement and External Relations Officer. She manages MCI’s public-facing platforms and assists with on-campus and outreach projects.
Nasira Asghar
Nasira is the Administrator within the Manchester China Institute.
Dr Xiaobing Wang
Dr Wang is MCI’s Research Director and Senior Lecturer in the Economics of China.
Dr Rian Thum
Dr Thum is MCI’s interim Teaching Director and Senior Lecturer in East Asian History.
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:
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Elena Barabantseva
Chair, SoSS Politics
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Gao Ning
AMBS Accounting and Finance
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Ed Pulford
SALC Chinese Studies
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Amy Zhang
SEED Urban Planning
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Nan Zhang
SoSS Social Statistics
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Research associates
MCI postdoctoral research associates conduct world-class research in China studies, and are housed in MCI's Lee Building.
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Dr Aoife Cantrill - Research Associate
Aoife’s research focuses on the politics of gender, literature, and language in Taiwan and China under Japanese imperialism.
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Dr Han-Wu-Shuang (Bruce) Bao - Research Associate
Bruce’s (包寒吴霜) research focuses on social perceptions, cultural stereotypes, and their psychological consequences, with a quantitative methodology based on natural language processing and large-scale text analysis. He is also focusing on developing new, broader methodologies and research tools for psychological science.
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Dr Tao Wang - Hallsworth Research Fellow
Tao’s ongoing work centres on political representation in Taiwan and cross-Strait relations.
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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.
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Dr Yuting Yao – Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sheffield
[November 2023 – Present] As part of an AHRC-funded project, Yuting investigates influential texts and actors on social media model climate change futures through cultural lenses. Her PhD research at the University of Manchester looked at how different communities (re)construct and communicate the concept of climate change and climate actions in the Chinese context. Her research interests include climate change communication, science communication, and East Asian science, technology, and society (STS) studies.
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Dr Mark Czeller – Visiting Scholar, Institute of Historical Research, University of London
[October 2023 – Present] Mark Czellér holds a Past & Present Fellowship (2022-24) at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. He completed his doctorate in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford. His doctoral thesis, which he is revising for publication as a monograph, is titled 'Non-People in the People’s Republic: Landlords and Rich Peasants under Maoist State Socialism’, and is a political, cultural, and social history of the largest group of people treated as 'class enemies' by the Maoist state.
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Dr Xiaomeng Li - Visiting Scholar, Shanghai International Studies University
[October 2023 – Present] Dr. Xiaomeng Li (李晓蒙) is an Assistant Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Shanghai International Studies University. Her research interests and published works focus on Chinese women and nationalism, East Asian popular culture and fandom.
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Dr Weiwei Chen – Postdoctoral Researcher, Open University
[April 2023 – Present] Weiwei Chen is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the School of Social Sciences and Global Studies at Open University. She leads a subproject within the REDEFINE project, funded by the European Research Council, designed to understand the driving forces, modalities, and impacts of Chinese investments in Europe. In addition, As an MCI visiting scholar, Weiwei conducts research on Chinese engagements in Manchester, including the sister city relationship between Manchester and Wuhan.
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Shiyue Jia - PhD student in Economics, School of Economics, Peking University
[April 2023 - Present] Shiyue's interests lie in the Development Economy, focusing particularly on Industrial Policy. Her current research in Manchester is examining "China's hidden unemployment", based on perspectives within the Modern Monetary Theory.
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Dr Nicholas McGee - Lecturer in Modern Chinese History at Durham University
[March 2020 - Present] Nicholas McGee researches nineteenth-century conflict between the Qing and British empires over Chinese migration flows.
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Research affiliates
MCI research affiliates include former research fellows and visiting scholars, forming part of our global research network on China.
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Zihan Wang – PhD student at UoM’s School of Social Science
Zihan Wang is a one-year visiting PhD student at UoM’s School of Social Science from December 2023. She studies Economics at Sun Yat-sen University, and her research focuses on political economics, especially the impact of local government behaviour, reform, and business environment.
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Ziying Xu – PhD student in Economics, Xi’an Jiaotong University
Ziying Xu is a PhD student in Economics from Xi’an Jiaotong University. She conducts research on the urbanization of China, with a focus on demography and consumption. Her research interests include macro-economics, economic development & growth, DSGE, Bayesian estimation, and time series.
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Dr Meng Zhang – History, Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine
Meng is a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow in the History of Medicine. His research explores the interplay between medicine, colonialism, and nationalism in 20th-century China, with a focus on material culture and technology.
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Ke Ma – PhD student in Anthropology, University of Amsterdam
Ke Ma is a PhD student in the Anthropology Department at the University of Amsterdam, researching the cultural politics of race in contemporary China. Her PhD project explores how whiteness as a racial category is articulated and negotiated in China's cultural industry.
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Dr Jin Dai - Researcher in Memory and Media Representation
Jin’s research focuses on memory studies, visual anthropology, media representation and cultural identity in China.
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Dr Ye Tian - Researcher in Translation Studies
Ye Tian田野 is interested in the theoretical and practical insights of translation, especially how they facilitate an alternative understanding of China. He is also intrigued by the theory of semiotic translation, and thus inclined to rethink culture theories within the scope of intersemiotic translation.
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Dr Seong Lin Ding - Associate Professor of Sociolinguistics at the University of Malaya
Dr Ding's research focuses on minority and heritage languages, multilingualism, and identity.
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Min Li – PhD student in Industrial Agglomeration, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China
Min conducts research on industrial clusters in China, with a focus on creative industries.
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Qianyue Meng - Lee Kai Hung Predoc Awardee Ph.D student in Regional Economics, Wuhan University, China
Qianyue conducts research on rural development in China, with a focus on rural finance and family farms.
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Dr Di Lu – Researcher of Chinese Materia Medica and Natural History in a Global Context
Dr Di Lu – Researcher of Chinese Materia Medica and Natural History in a Global Context.
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Ziqi Yin - PhD student in Art History, Tsinghua University, China
Ziqi Yin 尹子琪 focuses on the influence of Western Art History on Chinese Art History and theory in the 20th Century.
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Dr Eric Schluessel - Assistant Professor of History and Political Science
Eric Schluessel studies the social and cultural history of Xinjiang and its connected regions.
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Dr Katja Levy - Research Fellow
Dr Katja Levy 李可嘉 is a political scientist and Kui Man Gerry Yeung Postdoctoral Research Fellow currently studying charity and civic engagement in the UK and China. Further research interests include China's foreign relations, particularly with Europe and Latin America.
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Dr Carwyn Morris - Research Associate
Dr Carwyn Morris is a Human Geographer who researches how surveillance and censorship are practiced and imagined, digital activism, mobility and migration and the production of digital territory.
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Dr Cong Peng - Research Affiliate
Cong Peng 彭聪 studies the social/political psychology of emotions, with a focus on gratitude and indebtedness.
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Qiaochu Zhang – PhD student in Politics at the University of Manchester
Qiaochu’s research interests span Chinese foreign policy, norm contestation theory, and UN politics. Her PhD project explores the questions of whether, and if so, how China executes normative contestation regarding the liberal norms of human protection.
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Jingran Yu - Research Affiliate
Jingran's research interests lie at the intersection of sociology, education and geography, with a particular focus on transnational educational space and its implications for socio-spatial (in)equalities.
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Dr Hanwei Li - Research Affiliate
Hanwei Li 李晗薇 studies the sociological and educational aspects of highly skilled migration and student migration, with a focus on Europe and China.
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Dr Pak Chun (Paton) Yam - Research Affiliate
Paton Pak Chun Yam studies the social/political psychology of emotion and intergroup contact, with a focus on intergroup schadenfreude.
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Dr David Tobin – Research Fellow in the Political Economy of China
David Tobin is Hallsworth Research Fellow in the Political Economy of China. His research focuses on the relationship between identity and security in China's ethnic politics.
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Dr Yi Wang - Research Affiliate
Yi Wang studies collective memory, nationalism, international security, and political communication, with a regional focus on China.
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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 Browne – Geography, 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 Gao – International 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 Sun – International 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 Zhang – Planning, 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.