Taiwan

TING Jen-Chieh is an Assistant Research Fellow in the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Ting graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Sociology Department in 1997, specializing in Social Psychology and Sociology of Religion. His dissertation is a case study of the Buddhist Tzu-Chi Association, one of the most fluorishing Buddhist movements in Taiwan. Later, his interests moved to the study  of new religious phenomena in modern Taiwan, especially concerning the dynamics of syncretism, spiritualism, charity, and local leadership under Chinese cultural context. Studies cover various modern religious organizations and movements, such as the Tzu-Chi Association,  Ching Hai Association, True Buddha Association, this-world Buddhism, and some folk collective trance movements, etc. At HYI his project was on both the Falun Gong overseas and the organization of Scientology.

Sean Hsiang-lin LEI teaches modern history of Chinese medicine and science studies in Taiwan Tsing-hua University. He received his  master's degree in physical chemistry and Ph.D in science studies from the University of Chicago in 1999. His current research interests  can be divided along two related lines: 1. modern history of Chinese medicine, including the social, cultural, and techno-scientific; 2. science, technology and society (STS), particularly the emerging interests of East governments to build their domestic pharmaceutical industry on the bases of scientific researches of Chinese and local drugs and the related issue of traditional knowledge rights and globalization of traditional medicine. 

Chia-Feng Chang is Associate Professor in the History Department, National Taiwan University. She received a Ph.D. from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in the history of medicine, and a M.A. from the Tsing-Hua University in the history of astronomy. She works on the social and cultural history of Chinese medicine. Her more recent research has focused on the history of body, gender, and transmission of medical knowledge and practice. She is currently working on changing ideas of child’s bodies in medieval China, and smallpox variolation and vaccination in the nineteenth century.

Professor Lin is an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica, Institute of Chinese Literature and Philology. She is a scholar of Chinese philosophy who emphasizes the intellectual development of late Ming thought. She received her M.A. and Ph.D., both in Chinese Literature, from National Taiwan University.

Professor Lee is an expert on early imperial China with an emphasis on gender issues in legal and medical history. She received her M.A. in history from National Taiwan University. Her Ph.D., also in History, was received from the University of Washington (Seattle). She is an Associate Research fellow at the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica. 

Professor Chiu is an economic historian who has done significant research on artisans and merchants associations in Suzhou from 1700-1900. He received both his M.A. and Ph.D. in History from National Taiwan University.

Current Research Projects and Interests: Material culture, economy and law in late imperial China

Professor Chen is an accomplished anthropologist and archaeologist who has conducted significant fieldwork in southern Taiwan. She obtained her M.A. in anthropology from National Taiwan University, where she has returned to become an assistant professor. She received her Ph.D. in Archaeology from Arizona State University. She is interested in the study of ceramics, the subsistence system, settlement patterns, and socioeconomic organization.