Els Van Dongen Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Els van Dongen received her Ph.D. from the Department of Chinese Studies, Leiden University (the Netherlands). She obtained her M.A. and B.A. degrees from the Department of Chinese Studies, University of Leuven (Belgium), and a post-graduate degree in International Relations from the Department of Political Science, University of Leuven. Prior to joining NTU, she also studied and conducted research in China (Central China Normal University and Peking University), and the USA (Boston University). She completed her Ph.D. with the support of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Fulbright Foundation.

Els specializes in the study of modern and contemporary China from global and interdisciplinary perspectives. Her research broadly covers two main areas, namely Chinese intellectual history and knowledge circulation and Chinese migration and diaspora. Both areas are connected in that they reflect her core concern of how the transnational movement of people, ideas, and institutions has informed the making of modern and contemporary China. Methodologically, she combines textual analysis of a broad range of Chinese primary sources with interdisciplinary, regional, global, and comparative approaches developed from her training in Chinese Studies, history and International Relations.