I am the Hong Kong Director of the Yale-China Association, which is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that has longtime affiliations with Yale University, New Asia College, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. My office is in the Cheng Ming Building of New Asia College. As Hong Kong Director, I wear many hats: I represent Yale-China in the vibrant New Asia College community, I frequently travel to China to help guide programs with Yale-China’s partner institutions in various provinces, and I remain active as a scholar, writing articles and teaching one course each year for the sociology department of CUHK.

I earned my Ph.D. at Yale University in the Department of Sociology, where my doctoral thesis was recognized for “Best Dissertation” in 2014. I also have an M.A. in Chinese religious studies from Indiana University and a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Wesleyan University. I studied Mandarin in Beijing, Japanese in Kyoto, and Tibetan in northern India. I have worked in the global nonprofit and social movements sector for over a decade.

My research interests focus on the intersection of politics and culture. My book, Making Activists in Global China (Cambridge University Press, 2019), compares the development and outcomes of two Chinese diaspora protests movements. Its major contribution was to reveal the unexpected dynamics that unfold when grassroots mobilization and indigenous Chinese religiosity intersect. In 2020, Becoming Activists in Global China won Honorable Mention for the Asia/Transnational Book Award by the American Sociological Association’s Asia and Asian America Section. My interests and teaching experiences are diverse, including classical and contemporary social theory, gender, religion, and contentious politics.

Prior to coming to CUHK and the Yale-China Association, I taught in the Society of Fellows at the University of Chicago and in the sociology department of Valparaiso University. Students in my class at CUHK will need to be willing to think theoretically as well as practically and empirically.