Postgraduate Research Affiliates

[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.

Aoife’s research focuses on the politics of gender, literature, and language in Taiwan and China under Japanese imperialism.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

Jin’s research focuses on memory studies, visual anthropology, media representation and cultural identity in China.

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 Ding's research focuses on minority and heritage languages, multilingualism, and identity.

Dr Di Lu – Researcher of Chinese Materia Medica and Natural History in a Global Context.

Ziqi Yin 尹子琪 focuses on the influence of Western Art History on Chinese Art History and theory in the 20th Century.

Eric Schluessel studies the social and cultural history of Xinjiang and its connected regions.

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 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.

Cong Peng 彭聪 studies the social/political psychology of emotions, with a focus on gratitude and indebtedness.

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'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.

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.

Paton Pak Chun Yam studies the social/political psychology of emotion and intergroup contact, with a focus on intergroup schadenfreude.

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.

Yi Wang studies collective memory, nationalism, international security, and political communication, with a regional focus on China.

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 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.

[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.