Team & Students

Executive Team

Dr Joseba ESTEVEZ

Deputy director of the Global Society and Sustainability Lab Co-Director of the Yao Dao Project

Dr. Joseba Estévez is a social anthropologist and an incoming Research Assistant Professor at the “Asian Religious Connections” cluster, Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (HKIHSS), The University of Hong Kong. His research interests include ritual, cosmology, exchange, social morphology and social transformation, the comparison of ideologies, animism, Buddhism, Chinese religion and Daoism.

Ms FAN Ziwei

Deputy director of the Global Society and Sustainability Lab

Ms. Ziwei Fan has deep expertise at the intersection between finance, environmental science, and Daoist principles. Currently, she researches on Daoist climate investment principles, Daoist ESG principles, and Daoist astronomy and ecology. As a scholar practitioner, she also cultivates Daoist esoteric practice on stars, thunder and ecological rites in accordance with her lay lineage of Mount Qingcheng female Daoists.

Dr Chun Kai LEUNG

Deputy director of the Global Society and Sustainability Lab

Dr. Chun Kai Leung (CK) is an expert in China’s energy security, global sustainability issues, and hydrocarbon value chains. He obtained PhD in human geography at Durham and received postdoctoral training at Harvard Kennedy School. He has held Visiting Fellow roles at Oxford University’s China Centre. In recent years, Dr. Leung has driven CityU’s MBA ESG curriculum, and co-managed the Hong Kong Chapter of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) with the Jockey Club Charities Trust. He serves as a topic editor for Frontiers in Environmental Science.

Ms Lunar TONG

Project Manager

Ms LIN Shumai

Media Manager

Ms. Shumai Lin obtained her MEd on Comparative Higher Education at the University of Hong Kong and worked at the Education for All section team at UNESCO's Paris headquarters. In recent years, she had worked as simultaneous interpreter in international news and documentary director at Phoenix TV. She is also a writer, columnist and mindfulness teacher trained at the Oxford Mindfulness Foundation.

Post-docs

NING Rundong

PhD, Yale University

NING Rundong is a sociocultural anthropologist. He obtained his Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology at Yale University. He also did research on entrepreneurship in Congo-Brazzaville and volunteerism in China. His research interests include different forms of work and labor, entrepreneurship, social studies of technology and finance, and all sorts of connections between China and Africa.

Current PhD and MPhil Students

TSE Man Him Martin

Martin TSE has been awarded as HKU Presidential PhD Scholar at the Asian Religious Connections [ASIAR] research cluster, HKIHSS. His PhD research is an ethnographic and textual study of the Daoist ordination rituals among the Lanten Yao in Laos, which attempts to reveal the articulation of the relationship between the Chinese core and ethnic periphery formulated by the Lanten Yao people in their rituals and religious texts.

GAI Yijun

Yijun’s Ph.D. thesis investigates the sociotechnical development of China’s solar power generation since the late 20th century. By tracing the various life stages of solar photovoltaic technologies, she aims to explore the role of renewable energy in China’s ecological civilization agenda, the social and economic life of local communities, and the broader context of the Anthropocene. Yijun also holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Toronto, which supports her interdisciplinary research.

SUN Jiayue

Jiayue is a PhD candidate at HKIHSS. His research explores the building rituals and sorcery of carpenters in Southwest China. Jiayue's broader research interests include Chinese popular religion, ethnic minority culture (particularly the Yao people), and their intersections with folk literature. Jiayue earned his MPhil under Dr. David Palmer's supervision also at HKIHSS and holds a BA in Sociology from HKU.

GONG Chen

Chen’s research interests are informed by both wen (文/civil, academic) and wu (武/martial, corporeal) experiences in Chinese martial arts (CMA). Chen’s PhD project proposes to trace the unexpected while longstanding popularity of Chinese martial arts in Egypt, at the disciplinary intersection of anthropology, sociology, history, and regional studies, as well as his experience and training.

HUA Ye

Ye received her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Chinese History at Fudan University. Previously trained in the methodologies of historical geography and historical anthropology, Ye is currently looking for more interdisciplinary ways to approach the study of late imperial China. In her doctoral research, Ye hopes to offer new insights into the history of science and the formation of Chinese sacred geography by examining how fengshui techniques survived and spread through mobilities across time and space.

WANG Yang

Yang's research interests encompass urban anthropology, modern Buddhism, gender studies, and volunteerism. His previous works examine temple-centered urban redevelopments in mainland China. For his doctoral dissertation, he studies with volunteer communities within Buddhist temples, and tries to understand the intricate intersections between gendered experiences in a broader societal context and the religious practices of female volunteers at these temples.

XUAN Ziqi

Ziqi Xuan received her bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Peking University and MPhil degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. She was a visiting student at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris in spring 2025, under the supervision of Prof. Vincent Goossaert. Her research focus on religious practices around Mount Tai, with a specific attention on the formation of collective memory about the sacred mountain in contemporary times. Additionally, she explores the construction of sacred spaces and pilgrimage traditions in Beijing and Tai’an during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Lilian GARCIA

Lilian García earned her BA in Psychology from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). While pursuing her Master's degrees in Buddhist Studies and Buddhist Counseling at the University of Hong Kong, she participated in the 2021 HKU Summer Research Programme and worked as a research assistant at the Faculty of Education at HKU. Her research interests encompass culture from a variety of perspectives, including the arts, sciences, and languages. Lilian is currently a full-time PhD student in the Department of Sociology, her current research focuses on Buddhist and New Age circulations in contemporary Mexico.

CHEN Jialin

Jialin received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Sun Yat-sen University, majoring in English Language and Literature. She received her second master’s degree in Religious Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include Chinese folk religion, Daoism, and spirituality. Currently, she focuses on the intersection of religion and gender in her study of female spirit mediums in rural Southeast China.

Former Post-docs and PhD Students

Mohammed TURKI AL-SUDAIRI

Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Australia National University

Mohammed Alsudairi is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations of the Arabic Speaking World. He holds a PhD in Comparative Politics from the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Alsudairi’s research focuses on the historical and contemporary connections between the Middle East and East Asia; the histories of transnational revolutionary and counter-revolutionary networks in the Arab world; ideological security bureaucracies and state-led cultural engineering practices across Asia; and Muslim religiosities and sectarian identities in the Middle East, China, among others.

Yana PAK

PhD, EHESS

Trained in sociology and philosophy, Dr. Yana Pak obtained her PhD at the EHESS (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences). Her research interests and regional specialization are Central Asia, and Kazakhstan in particular, where she conducted long-term sociological fieldwork from 2015 to 2023 on the local networks of entrepreneurs and modernity.

Anna ISKRA

PhD, HKU

Dr. Anna Iskra is an anthropologist with a focus on China, her academic interests include sociocultural and medical anthropology, religious and spiritual movements, gender studies, as well as the intersections between the state, psy-sciences, and self-formation processes in contemporary China.

LIU Zhao

PhD, HKU

Jules Zhao Liu is an associate professor in the School of Sociology and Anthropology, Sun Yat-Sen University. His PhD thesis is Statebuilding Encounters Popular Religion: Pingxiang, 1912-1978. He was a visiting fellow at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in 2016–17 and a Harvard-Yenching Fellow in 2017–18. With a research focus on religion, art and politics, his studies are situated at the intersection of anthropology, sociology, and history. His works are published in journals such as Anthropological Theory, Journal of Asian Studies, American Journal of Cultural Sociology, the Journal of Contemporary China etc. Now he is working on a book manuscript: Rhizome and Resilience: Statebuilding and Popular Religion in Modern China.

ZHANG Han

PhD, HKU

Zhang Han received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Hong Kong in 2012. He previously earned a Bachelor's degree in Sociology from Shandong University and a Master's degree in Sociology from Nanjing University. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Science at Tsinghua University (2013-2015), and served as a Lecturer and later an Associate Professor in the School of International Relations at the University of International Business and Economics (2015-2020). He has also been a visiting fellow at the Harvard-Yenching Institute and a visiting scholar at the School of Global Policy & Strategy, University of California, San Diego, and the Graduate School of International Studies, Seoul National University. He is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Sociology at Beijing Normal University. His research focuses on urban studies, particularly urban redevelopment and governance, as well as political sociology, including state theories, party politics, development studies, and state-society relations.

Fabian WINIGER

PhD, HKU

Dr. Fabian Winiger, M.Sc. (Oxon), PhD, is a Senior Research Fellow at the Professorship for Spiritual Care at the University of Zurich. Since completion of his doctoral studies at Hong Kong University, Dr. Winiger has collaborated with Prof. Simon Peng-Keller on establishing specialized spiritual care as an aspect of patient-centered care in Swiss and European healthcare institutions. Dr. Winiger has played a critical role in planning, funding acquisition, and management of several major research grants, including Swiss National Science Foundation-funded projects on the spiritual dimension of health in the World Health Organization (2018-2022), and on the development of faith-sensitive mental health and psychosocial support in United Nations organizations (2023-2026). Since 2021, he has been employed by the URPP Digital Religion(s), an interdisciplinary scientific consortium based at the University of Zurich.

RAO Yichen

PhD, HKU

Dr. Yichen Rao is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University. He holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies from The University of Hong Kong and has held research positions as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Comparative Media Studies at MIT, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan, and an Ernst Mach Fellow in Anthropology at the University of Vienna. From 2024 to 2027, he serves as the council member for the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S). He is also the board member of Sci-Tech Asia, an international research network. Rao’s research explores the unintended societal impacts of digital techno-fetishism in gaming, fintech, and infrastructure. Currently, Rao is developing a research project on digital scams, particularly “pig-butchering scams” in global China, investigating how the semiotics of digital deception operate across cultural and geopolitical boundaries.

QIU Zichan

MPhil, HKU

After obtaining my MA in History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), I was admitted to the MPhil program in Anthropology at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and completed my MPhil in early 2021. My MPhil thesis, "Modernizing Chinese religion in Malaysia: Buddhifying Rituals and Reforming customs in Sungai Chua new village", discussees how Chinese Malaysians construct and express their Chinese cultural identity based on their Buddhist knowledge. I am currently a Ph.D. student in History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. My dissertation research project is on the history of the Chinese diaspora in Jamaica.