Students

Alexander is a sixth year PhD candidate in Religious Studies at Duke University. He studies Chinese and Japanese Buddhism from Qing dynasty to the Republic of China and Meiji, Taisho, and Showa. He is currently working on his dissertation on Chinese Buddhists seeking esoteric Buddhism in Japan.

You can find out more about his research here: https://alexanderhowardatkins.com/"; title="alexanderhowardatkins.com/">alexanderhowardatkins.com

You can find his database project at Database">https://dmeab.com/">Database of Modern East Asian Buddhism

Mariko Azuma is a Ph.D. candidate in art history with a focus on modern Japanese art and visual culture. Her studies examine the spatial constructs of travel and tourism through mediums such as the built environment, photography, and travel pamphlets in the late-19^th-20^th century. At Duke, she is pursuing certificates in East Asian Studies and College Teaching. She is also interested in engaging with the broader scholarly community through the graduate student-led East Asia/Asian Diaspora Studies (EADS) Working Group. 

Felix is a PhD student in the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University. Centered on the post-growth city, his research critically explores emerging forms of urban sociality, post-growth urban futures, and our relationship to the historical and material legacy of the built environment. He investigates these issues through an ethnographic project on the residential communities of long-standing suburban public housing projects (danchi) in Tokyo, Japan. His other interests include gender and the family, labor and precarity, Marxism and political economy, the politics of cultural heritage and architectural preservation, and the anthropology of space. 

Felix holds a B.A. (Japan in East Asia, 2016) and an M.A (Interdisciplinary Information Studies, 2018) from the University of Tokyo.

Haocong Cheng is a Ph.D. student in the history department. Identifying himself as a historian of science and technology, environment, and society of twentieth-century China, Haocong's current research project revolves around livestock in twentieth-century Inner Mongolia. He aims to bring together human and nonhuman actors while exploring questions about modernizing projects and transnational knowledge production. Before joining Duke, he received his BA in history from UCLA and MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia.

Doctoral Student in Religious Studies

My academic interests have been grounded in the study of World Christianity via historical analysis. I have examined the vitality and variance of Christian faith in the specific cultural contexts, in East Asia. As a neophyte scholar, I have developed my research fields in the juxtaposition of historical study, cultural study, East Asian study, and Theology. 


Education
B.A., Theology, Yonsei University, South Korea (2013)
Th.M., World Christianity and Inter-cultural Studies, Yonsei University (2018) 
M.Div., Vanderbilt University (2021)

Yuting Hu is a PhD student in the Literature Program and the Asian/Pacific Studies Institute (APSI). She is now serving as the co-chair for the Critical Theory Workshop (CTW), the Jameson Institute for Critical Theory. Her research focuses on the construction of national subjectivity in anti-realist narratives in twentieth- and twenty-first century Chinese and Sinophone literature and media. She also works on Chinese literary and digital modernism and postmodernism, aesthetics, psychoanalysis, queer narratives, and video game studies.

The Institute for World Literature, Harvard University, 2025

M.A., University of Pennsylvania
East Asian Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics

School of Criticism and Theory, Cornell University, 2023

B.A., cum laude, University of Rochester
Comparative Literature (Highest Distinction); Philosophy (Highest Distinction)

Kexuan is a PhD student in the Department of Philosophy and a">https://philosophy.duke.edu">Philosophy and a certificate student of Gender">https://gendersexualityfeminist.duke.edu">Gender Sexuality Feminist Studies & East Asian Studies (APSIhttps://asianpacific.duke.edu">APSI;). Their research interests lie at the intersection of critical disability studies, feminist/queer/trans studies, memory studies, and asian american & diaspora studies. They also have a deep fondness for Taoist philosophies, especially the beautiful and hilarious philosophical writings in Zhuangzi. You are welcome to learn more about Kexuan or their research on their https://www.kexuanliu.com"; title="Personal Website">Website.

Coralei Neighbors, MS, is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in Population Health Sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine. Her research integrates infectious disease surveillance, economic evaluation, and policy analysis to inform evidence-based and equitable vaccine strategies. Her work sits at the intersection of infectious disease epidemiology, health economics, and global health policy, applying decision-analytic modeling and surveillance data to support population-level decision-making and resource allocation.

Coralei holds a Bachelor of Science in Health Science Studies from Baylor University and a Master of Science in Global Health from Duke University. She is currently pursuing graduate certificates in East Asian Studies, International Development Policy, and College Teaching, enhancing the global relevance and instructional impact of her work.

Her research contributes to advancing approaches that translate economic and epidemiologic evidence into actionable policy insights. She aims to support policymakers in developing effective, sustainable, and equity-driven immunization strategies. Long term, she aspires to contribute to global health systems strengthening through economic evaluation, decision-analytic modeling, and policy engagement.

Haotian Wang is an Ethnomusicology Ph.D. student in the Department of Music at Duke University. His research explores musical traditions, everyday soundscapes, and listening practices of Yunnan, Southwest China, and their intersections with transregional migration and cross-cultural exchange. Besides scholarship, he is a musician and sound artist whose creative work spans field recording, songwriting, performance, and installation. For more info and his projects, please see: https://www.haotianwangmusic.com/"; title="haotianwangmusic.com">haotianwangmusic.com

Ph.D. student in the Program in Literature, Duke University

M.A., New York University
English and American Literature

B.A., magna cum laude, Bowdoin College
English and Music Composition double major, Russian minor