I am a part-time PhD student based in the Centre for Regional and Economic Research. My PhD is supervised by Professor Aimee Ambrose, and Dr Pallavi Singh.

My research strives to understand how cultural identities affect UK-China environmental research collaborations and examine how to navigate potential issues caused by linguistic and cultural competencies, and the sharing or renegotiating of values and ideals. Existing research focuses mainly on the organisational and structural dimensions of research in this context, whereas collaboration practice is a virtually uncharted territory.

Within my research I am especially driven to focus on collaborations involving Early Career Researchers, because as a generally younger cohort, they face greater impacts from climate change yet suffer disproportionate insecurity of research agency compared to other cohorts. My goal is to identify the cultural enablers, blockers, and drivers of such collaborations, so I can demonstrate how cultural epistemological frameworks may help navigate collaboration practice issues. My project will operationalise a framework helping to enable British Chinese ECRs to better collaborate in a multicultural domain on environmental research, applying my findings to advance both theory and practice.

My specialisation in Chinese culture and language provides me with a partial insider skillset that can help navigate barriers of culture, access, and understanding as I build relationships with my potential participants. Resultantly, I can contribute to a mutual understanding of UK-China environmental research collaboration practice.

My specialisation in International Relations motivates me to connect my research to Just Transitions theory, so that I can contribute to shifting the focus of the current connection between environmental security and geopolitical boundaries towards a socio-environmental connection between justice, generosity, and ethics within climate research.

Whilst multiple perspectives inform my research, the effect and understanding of cultural identity and cultural intelligence are the focus.