I feel privileged to have the chance to approach some of the ultimate questions of human existence through my academic interests on aging, death, and grief. My MPhil research focuses on aging experiences in urban China, speaking to themes which may (or may not) include social inequality, post-socialist transition, the (re)making of memory, or others. But above all, to life itself.

Another question that has long underlain my academic voyage emanated from my time as a student of International Relations: how, and to what extent, could/should studying “from below” shed new light on studies of (international) politics? This very question first brought me to Anthropology. Over the years, I bounced from a Department of English, to the discipline of International Relations, to a research assistant position in medical policy, and now to Anthropology. The non-linear path of academic training enables me to gain inspiration and cultivation from multiple sources. I see it as a unique gift and inseparable from my study in Anthropology.

Though having never been situated in a Gender Studies department, I was exposed extensively to feminism and gender theories at every stop of my academic journey. Gender (theories) continue(s) to be my intellectual delight, theoretical sensitivity, and epistemological orientation.