I was born on an island in Southeast China and spent my childhood in the mountains of Southwest China. The landscape that I observed through the railways and mountain roads aroused my lasting interest in the changes in both time and spatial dimensions. I obtained a BA Honors degree from Lingnan University, majoring in History and minoring in Sociology. In my freshman year, I discovered connections between my family history and the history of mining, which led me to start studying the social-environmental-technological legacy and global interactions of mining in pre-modern China.
My relevant experience ranges from conferences on the history discipline to experimental archaeometallurgy summer school to anthropological fieldwork. I have also received short- term training in quantitative social science, computer science, and social work, and worked as an undergraduate research assistant in economics. My experience led me to the HKSAR Government Scholarship.
My interests are mainly about the history of natural history, and thus the changes in knowledge production and dissemination, and material culture worldwide, especially in China and Europe, since about 1500 AD. I am concerned with the global exchange of knowledge and materials, and the histories of individuals and societies involved in it. My undergraduate thesis examined the socioeconomic changes in a mining city in 18th-century Southwest China, an important location in my family history.
My recent work is about mining practice and textual knowledge transformation in mining in 18th and 19th centuries China. At Columbia and LSE, I will extend my research to the academic history of relevant fields. I plan to study the conceptualization of the earth and its path to earth science disciplines in 18th to 20th centuries China, the global interaction of knowledge itself, and the elite networks behind it.
Besides academic interests, I am a paleontology enthusiast and amateur illustrator, I also enjoy traveling, reading, vertically scrolling STG, badminton, and city walks.
