I am an associate professor of Asian Studies at Vanderbilt University. I hold a B.A. in Chinese literature and a M.A. in Chinese philology from Beijing Normal University (2006, 2009), and a Ph.D. in Chinese literature from Yale University (2015).

I specialize in early modern Chinese literature and culture, with particular interest in the intersections between writing, performance, materiality, and gender. My first book project examines theatrical costuming in 17th-century China when the Manchu rulers regulated hairstyles and clothing based on ethnicity and gender. The book argues that theatrical costuming provided a productive way to reconnect bodies and clothes dissociated by political turbulence. Currently I am working on two projects: one on dead bodies in forensic literature of late imperial China; the other on female suicide in Chinese drama. I teach a wide range of courses on premodern and modern China as well as Asian diaspora.