I studied at Fudan University (BA) and Peking University (MA) in China, and received my PhD with summa cum laude from the University of Heidelberg in Germany. I joined the University of Edinburgh as a Chancellor's Fellow, and became a Lecturer in 2016, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2019. Before taking up my position in Edinburgh I was a post-doctoral researcher at Academia Sinica in Taiwan, a research fellow at the Nantes Institute for Advanced Studies in France and the International Research Centre for Cultural Studies in Vienna (IFK). I was awarded the Ruprecht Karls Prize for my PhD dissertation, and received fellowships from the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Gerda Henkel Foundation, and Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, among others.

I'm a historian of modern China, with particular research interests in sensory history, visual culture, and more recently, plant studies. My recent book, Scents of China: A Modern History of Smell (Cambridge University Press, 2023),  revisits modern Chinese history through the nose. Drawing on unexplored archival materials, this book unveils how microscopic molecular processes of smelling ran deeply beneath everyday social interactions, bringing to light complex socio-corporeal dynamics underlying the untold stories of stinking ditches, artificial scents, sexual odours, and foul class enemies. I have also co-edited a volume (with Shengqing Wu) entitled Sensing China: Modern Transformations of Sensory Culture (Routledge, 2022). Bringing together twelve articles by internationally renowned scholars, this book explores the deeply rooted meanings that the senses have ingrained in culture and society of modern China.

Another field of my research is early Chinese cinema and media culture. I have published widely on this subject, including the monograph Shanghai Filmmaking: Crossing Borders, Connecting to the Globe, 1922-1938 (Brill, 2014), which sheds new light on early Chinese film culture through a case study of the Mingxing (Star) Motion Picture Company, one of the most influential film studios in early Chinese film history. I have also written about the pioneering film actress and producer Yang Naimei, earliest Chinese film comedies, the spatial logic of a Shanghai movie theatre, consuming Soviet movies in China, and the transcultural and transmedial translation of a Victorian story, among others.

My current research explores plant hunting, plant life, and interspecies connectivity on the stage of colonial history.