博士后与访问学者 | Postdoctoral Research Associates & Scholars in Residence
MCI boasts a collegial and intellectually stimulating atmosphere for the study of China. Our postdoctoral research associates conduct world-class research in China studies. And during their stays, Scholars in Residence participate in the research life of MCI: attending MCI research seminars, presenting their work, and working collaboratively with Manchester-based researchers on academic outputs.
Postdoctoral research associates
MCI postdoctoral research associates are housed in MCI's Lee Building, where they conduct world-leading research in China studies.
Apply
Thanks to the annual interest from the endowment created by Dr. Lee's generous gift, the Manchester China Institute (MCI) offers funding for one Postdoctoral Research Associate position each year, ensuring support in perpetuity.
It is currently a two-year position, and is advertised every odd year in late Autumn (e.g. 2025, 2027) to start in the Autumn of even years (e.g. md-September 2026, 2028).
The job announcements will be made on this webpage, and via our social media (Facebook, X, Instagram, Linkedin), which you can follow.
Links to postings will also be available through the University of Manchester’s job portal. Use the keyword "China" in your search.
-
Dr Sha Zhou – Research Associate
Dr Sha Zhou obtained her PhD in Contemporary British History from King’s College London in 2021, with a thesis on the migration of ethnic Chinese women to post-war Britain. Most recently, she worked at the School of International Studies/Academy of Overseas Chinese Studies at Jinan University, where she grew an interest in everyday political activities of the Chinese in Britain.
Sha’s research lies primarily in women in international migration, race and ethnic minorities in modern Britain, and the history of Chinese migration and diaspora, using mainly archival records and oral histories. Her work at MCI looks at state intervention in its domestic Chinese population and community responses in twentieth-century urban Britain.
Email Sha
-
Dr Tao Wang - Hallsworth Research Fellow
Tao’s ongoing work centres on political representation in Taiwan and cross-Strait relations.
View research profile
Dr Aoife Cantrill - Research Associate
Aoife’s research focuses on the politics of gender, literature, and language in Taiwan and China under Japanese imperialism.
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.
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.
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.
Dr Cong Peng - Research Affiliate
Cong Peng 彭聪 studies the social/political psychology of emotions, with a focus on gratitude and indebtedness.
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.
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.
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.
Dr Yi Wang - Research Affiliate
Yi Wang studies collective memory, nationalism, international security, and political communication, with a regional focus on China.
Scholars in residence
MCI scholars in residence are housed in the Lee Building, contributing to our vibrant multidiciplinary research culture for China studies.
Apply
MCI welcomes applications to its scholars in residence programme from researchers at all career stages working in the field of China studies. Preference will be given to applicants whose projects contribute to excellence in China studies at UoM and to MCI’s mission, and are evaluated solely on the basis of academic merit and fit.
Learn more and apply on our Scholars in Residence page.
-
Dr Linghui Ji – Distinguished Researcher, School of History, Zhejiang University
[September 2024 – Present] Linghui mainly studies modern and contemporary Chinese history & medical and social history. His new book is 'The Bacteriology Theory and Epidemic Prevention in the Late Qing Dynasty and the Early Republic of China '(Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 2023). In recent years, the object of research has changed from knowledge to system, and the research has been carried out around the National Health Administration of Nanjing National Government. As an MCI visiting scholar, Linghui focuses on the history of the research, development, and promotion of biological products in modern China.
Email Linghui
-
Yingtao Li – PhD Student in International Relations, King's College London
[September 2024 – Present] Yingtao’s research interests span Critical Security Studies, Science and Technology Studies, and Digital International Relations. Her PhD project focuses on Chinese tech giants’ roles in global governance.
Email Yingtao
-
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.
Email Yuting
-
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.
Email Mark
-
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.
Read more
-
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.
Read more
Dr Xiaomeng Li - Visiting Scholar, Shanghai International Studies University
[October 2023 – September 2024] 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Dr Di Lu – Researcher of Chinese Materia Medica and Natural History in a Global Context
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.
Dr Eric Schluessel - Assistant Professor of History and Political Science
Eric Schluessel studies the social and cultural history of Xinjiang and its connected regions.
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.
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.
Xiaoman Zhao – Visiting PhD student in Social Security
Xiaoman Zhao is a PhD student in Social Security from Zhejiang University. Her research interests include social policy, income redistribution, inequality, and consumption in China, with a focus on the elderly.
Liyuan Wang – Visiting PhD student in Economics
Liyuan Wang is a PhD candidate in Economics at Renmin University of China and, since August 2024, a visiting PhD student at the Department of Economics, University of Manchester. Her main areas of research include development economics, international economics, and public economics. Her ongoing research investigates the domestic labor market impacts of imports and industrial offshoring.
Shiyue Jia - PhD student in Economics, School of Economics, Peking University
[April 2023 - March 2024] 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.