Postgradute researchers
Aofei Lv
Aofei Lv is a PhD student in the School of Social and Political Sciences, part of the College of Social Sciences at the University of Glasgow.
The focus of her research is health policy change in China since 2003, which she describes as “a paradigmatic shift from passiveness to activeness since SARS”. She is examining the roles of three main players in this context – the media, health (is it correct to say health experts?) experts and international organisations – and how they exert influence in the policy process of a “fragmented authoritarian state”. She argues that media, experts and international organisations play an increasingly important role as an Entrepreneurial Policy Coalition (P.E.C.) in influencing health policy in China, but that their function is also institutionalised by the government through formal and informal channels.
Before moving to Glasgow, she gained a BA and MA in Political Science from Nankai University and a BA in Business Administration from Tianjin University.
The main reason for her choice of Glasgow was the opportunity to study under Professor Jane Duckett, a leading expert in the field of social policy and China. Professor Duckett is director of both the Scottish Centre for China Research and the Confucius Institute at the University of Glasgow; she is also Guest Professor at Nankai University.
Since moving to Glasgow, Aofei has grown to appreciate the university’s campus, the people she works with and the inclusive environment in which she works. The University’s high quality of teaching and research are both “insightful and innovative” and will help her develop a “solid foundation for academic life”, she believes.
Supervisors
Hua Wang
Hua Wang came to the University of Glasgow in September 2010 to do a PhD in politics.
For the past four years, she has been researching the influence of non-local chambers of commerce on the policy process in China. Having completed her literature research and data-collection, she is now at the writing-up stage of her doctorate.
She spent six years studying Public Administration at Nankai University – four years on her batchelor’s degree and two year on her master’s degree – all the time developing her interest in social sciences.
The Universities of Nankai and Glasgow have a long history of collaboration and it was on the recommendation of her teachers at Nankai that she applied for the PhD research programme at Glasgow. They were impressed by the University of Glasgow’s research capacity – particularly the cutting-edge research into Chinese politics being done within the School of Political and Social Sciences.
Since embarking on her PhD at Glasgow, she has been involved in a number of collaborative research projects involving Nankai and Glasgow universities. These include “Participatory mechanisms in China’s urban government policy formulation, 2011-13”, under the auspices of the Hangzhou Development Research Centre; and one book chapter for “The Report of Chinese Government Development” edited by Professor Zhu Guanglei etc , Nankai University.
She plans to complete her PhD thesis in this academic year and then look for a job which will allow here to carry out further research into her topics of interest.
Supervisor
Menglin Cao
Menglin Cao is a PhD research student in the University of Glasgow’s College of Science and Engineering. Based in the Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering research division, in the School of Engineering, her research is focused on the nanofabrication and characterisation of high-performance compound semiconductor devices.
She studied at Nankai University from 2007-11 in the Department of Microelectronics in the College of Information Technology and Science, which has since been renamed the College of Electronic Information and Optical Engineering.
She chose Glasgow for her PhD research partly because of its history and welcoming campus culture. Founded in 1451, the University is the fourth oldest in the English-speaking world and boasts famous alumni, including James Watt, Lord Kelvin and Adam Smith, who have been world leaders of change.
The main attraction, however, was the School of Engineering’s reputation for world-class teaching and research – a reputation built up over the last 150 years. Most of her research is carried out in the James Watt Nanofabrication Centre, which houses nanofabrication tools worth more than £25 million in a 900m2 cleanroom. The University of Glasgow has more than 35 years of experience in micro-nanofabrication for various semiconductor devices and is at the cutting edge of this area of research.
Once she has gained her doctorate at Glasgow, she hopes to continue her research at Nankai University and set up a collaborative partnership between the two institutions in her field of nanoscale semiconductor devices.
Supervisor
- Prof Iain Thayne