Postgraduate research students

In my doctoral research I engage with the concept of the 'guanjian dai' 关键带 (critical zone) in China. Undertaking a transfigurative analysis inspired by the work of Elizabeth Povinelli, I study the ways in which this concept has circulated across different contexts, and the ways in which it has been imbued with particular meanings.

In addition to my core PhD research, I am working on two projects.

• The first, building on my MSc thesis at the University of Oxford, uses Chinese-language scientific and policy sources to trace the history of shimohua 石漠化 (rocky desertification) in China.
• The second, funded by the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science’s Saltire Emerging Researcher scheme, focuses on processes of collaboration between critical zone, eco-system, and socio-ecological research in emerging European research infrastructures.

• Professor Deborah Dixon
• Professor Larissa Naylor
• Professor Jane Duckett

• February-July 2022: Scottish Graduate School of Social Science’s Saltire Emerging Researcher award
• 2020-2023: Scottish Graduate School of Social Science Studentship in Human Geography 
• 2008-2009: Stephen D. Hassenfeld fellowship, Johns Hopkins University - Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies
• 2007-2008: HSBC scholarship, School of Oriental and African Studies

• "The politics of the sub-surface: establishing ‘critical zones’ in south-west China", Accepted speaker, American Association of Geographers Annual Conference, Denver, USA (March 23-27, 2023)
• "Reflecting on the Geopolitics of 'Critical Zones' in China", Speaker, East Asian Regional Conference in Alternative Geography, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan (Dec 9-11, 2022)
• "The political geographies of ecologies in translation", Co-convenor, Political Geography Research Group sponsored session at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference (30 Aug-2 Sept, 2022)
• “The science of rocky desertification in China: textual methods for a postcolonial ecology”, School of Geographical & Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow (29 Oct, 2021)
• “An anthropology of the otherwise: Imagining karst futures in southwest China”, panel on “Historical geographies of environmental futures” at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference (31 Aug-3 Sept, 2021)
• “How does ‘rocky desertification’ frame people and place in the People’s Republic of China (PRC)?”, Oxford University’s 5th Interdisciplinary Desert Conference (July 1-2, 2021)
• The relationship between Buddhism, science, the ‘ether’, ‘nerves’, and governance in the poetry of Chinese scholar and reformer Tan Sitong (1865-1898), Cambridge University’s Needham Research Institute (June 6, 2008)

• 2022-2023: Tutor, School of Geographical & Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow (Lab Leader, Year One Physical and Human Geography Labs)
• 2021-2022: Tutor, School of Geographical & Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow (Graduate Teaching Assistant, UG and PG 'Earth Futures' courses)

• 2018-2019: Awarded MSc in Nature, Society, and Environmental Governance, with distinction, at the University of Oxford
• 2008-2009 Awarded Post-Graduate Certificate in Chinese Studies, at the Johns Hopkins University - Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies
• 2007-2008: Awarded MA in Sinology at the School of Oriental and African Studies
• 2003-2007: Awarded BA in Chinese and Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies