People

• Professor Nathan Hill Director of the Trinity Centre for Asian Studies, Sam Lam Professor in Chinese Studies. 
  Prof. Hill, based in the School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences, researches Tibeto-Burman/Sino-Tibetan historical linguistics. He publishes in descriptive linguistics, corpus linguistics, comparative linguistics, and the history of Chinese.
• Professor Lorna Carson Professor in Applied Linguistics, F.T.C.D. Head of the School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences.
  Professor Carson’s research focuses on second language teaching, learning and assessment, with a particular emphasis on multilingualism in urban contexts.
• Dr Isabella Jackson Assistant Professor in Chinese History, Associate Director of the Trinity Centre for Asian Studies. 
  Dr. Jackson, based in the Department of History, researches modern Chinese history, especially the history of Chinese childhood and China’s experience of foreign colonialism.
• Dr INOUE Keiko Research Fellow/Japanese Studies Coordinator
  Dr Inoue coordinates and delivers the Trinity Electives in Japanese language and culture as well as the Japanese extramural programme. She is the former Chairperson of the Japanese Language Teachers of Ireland.
• Ms DO Eunjee Adjunct Assistant Professor in Korean Studies
  Ms Do coordinates and delivers the Korean Studies programme at the Trinity Centre for Asian Studies, including the Korean language modules and the Korean extramural programme.
• Luca Ka Lo Yau Adjunct Teaching Fellow in Modern Chinese Studies
  Luca Ka Lo Yau is a PhD researcher, funded by the Irish Research Council Laureate Award CHINACHILD: Slave-Girls and the Discovery of Female Childhood in Twentieth-Century China (PI: Dr Isabella Jackson). She is in interested in the interconnectedness of China and the outside world, and her PhD project focuses on the Chinese reception of imported pedagogy for early childhood education in the early twentieth century.
• Dr Ning Jiang Adjunct Assistant Professor in Chinese Studies
  Dr Jiang's research interest are in business linguistics, second language acquisition and new media in Asia.
• Dr Chung Kam Kwok Research Fellow - Dr Kwok, based in the School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences, and researches in the area of language and identity. He contributes to the Chinese Studies programme.
• Dr GENG Yushu Research Fellow (Postdoctoral Researcher) in Modern Chinese Studies, funded by the Irish Research Council Laureate Award CHINACHILD: Slave-Girls and the Discovery of Female Childhood in Twentieth-Century China (PI: Dr Isabella Jackson). Dr Geng is based in the School of Histories and Humanities. Her doctoral research examined discourses of obscenity and moral regulation in Singapore and China in the 1920s and 30s, and her current research focuses on the construction of girlhood and womanhood in republican Chinese medical advertisements.
• Dr Hongfei Wang Teaching Fellow/Mandarin Language Instructor. Dr Wang is a Mandarin Language Instructor at the Trinity Centre for Asian Studies and programme coordinator for Trinity Language and Culture Elective modules. Her Ph.D. focused on the implementation of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) in post-primary education in Ireland. Her research interests include TCFOL, Teaching Methodology, Language Pedagogy, Language Evaluation and Assessment, CALL and ICALL.
• Dr Lai Yunfan Research Fellow and Principal Investigator on the GyU-LHA project (Gyalrongic unveiled: Languages, Heritage, Ancestry), supported by an SFI-IRC Pathway programme grant. His research focusses on the Gyalrongic languages of the Sino-Tibetan family, one of the most conservative language groups in the Sino-Tibetan family, from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. His PhD focussed on Khroskyab and his most recent research has expanded to study other Gyalrongic languages such as Situ, and the ancient Tangut language of the Xixia kingdom.
• Dr Zhang Shuya Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Research Fellow. She earned her PhD in language sciences from INALCO, Paris. Her research focuses on endangered Gyalrongic languages, investigating their significance for linguistic and interdisciplinary studies. Her recent work includes the comparative study of Tangut and Gyalrongic languages, as well as exploring kinship and family structures in the Gyalrongic-speaking area. Through her KinSiGHT project (Kinship systems in Gyalrong: History and Transformation), she utilizes linguistic evidence to track the evolution of the kinship systems of the Gyalrongs.

Visiting Academics & Affiliated Researchers

• Professor Jerusha McCormack & Professor John G. Blair work in comparative culture studies. Their most recent publication is Thinking Through China (2015, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers). Currently Visiting Academics at TCAS, they contribute to the M.Phil. module China in Comparative Perspective and the UG module in Contemporary Asian Studies
• Dr James Hadley is Ussher Assistant Professor in Literary Translation who is affiliated with TCAS. Based in the Trinity Centre for Literary Translation, his work includes research on historical cases of translation in under-researched cultural contexts, particularly in East Asia, including Japanese Rakugo, translation from Chinese during Japan’s period of isolationism, and the patronage of translators in Japan.
• Professor Wenqing Kang is a historian of gender and sexuality in China who is visiting Trinity for the 2023-4 academic year from the History Department of Cleveland State University, USA. He earned his Ph.D from the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research focuses on male same-sex relations in modern China. His book Obsession: Male Same-Sex Relations in China, 1900-1950 (Hong Kong University Press) reveals how nationalism and colonial modernity reconfigured Chinese discourses on sex between men in the first half of the 20th century. He is now writing a book on male same-sex relations in the PRC from 1949 to the present, drawing on interviews and library and archival resources.
• Dr Louis Brennan is a Professor within the Trinity Business School and a Fellow of Trinity College. His research focuses on the Business environment in East Asia with a particular emphasis on outward foreign direct investment from China. Dr Brennan is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Wong Center for the Study of Multinational Corporations.
• Dr Jude Lal Fernando is Assistant Professor in Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies at the Irish School of Ecumenics in TCD. He is the Director of the Trinity Centre for Post-Conflict Justice and brings praxis-based experience to the academic context in the fields of interreligious studies and international peace studies. His research has a specific focus on the role of interreligious dialogue in peace-building, and ethno-nationalisms and geopolitics, focusing on Sri Lanka in particular, and Asia more generally.
• Dr Dong Jin Kim is a Research Fellow at TCD’s Irish School of Ecumenics. Dong-Jin obtained his PhD from the University of North Korean Studies in Korea. His research interests are in the area of peacebuilding, reconciliation, humanitarian and development cooperation in the Korean peninsula and East Asia, and comparative studies of peace processes, including Korea and Ireland.
• Dr Motoko Akashi Dr Motoko Akashi is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Research Fellow. She holds a PhD in Literary Translation Studies from University of East Anglia. Her research interests centre on commercial aspects of literary translation and translator status. Her research topics have included Haruki Murakami, celebrity translators, publishing tradition and the modern history of Japanese translation. Her current project IMPACTRANS investigates the relationship between the translators in Meiji Japan (1868-1912), their social status, and their approaches to producing indirect translations (translations of translations).
• Dr Shigeki Nakagome Shigeki Nakagome did his Ph.D. in Human Genetics at the University of Tokyo in 2010. He joined Trinity in 2016, after stints at The Institute of Statistical Mathematics (2011-13) and University of Chicago (2013-16). He is an expert in paleogenomics, population genetics, statistical modelling, and functional genomics. He has also discovered a novel model of the origins of modern Japanese populations.
• Dr Seema K. Chauhan Seema K. Chauhan is the Assistant Professor of Asian Religions in the School of Religion, Theology, and Peace Studies. She holds an MPhil in Classical Indian Religions from Oxford (2015) and a PhD in South Asian Religions from the University of Chicago (2021). Dr. Chauhan conducts teaching and research on the history of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism in South Asia. Her expertise lies in premodern Hinduism and Jainism through Sanskrit and Prakrit sources.

Doctoral Research Students at TCAS

Jinqi Ying Reconstructing the initials of Old Chinese through the Philology of Excavated DocumentsSupervisor: Prof Nathan Hill. Muhammad Ilyas Morpho-Phonological Analysis of Verbal System in Balti Language Supervisor: Prof Nathan Hill. Li Shihua Finding Tujia’s Place in Tibeto-Burman.Supervisor: Prof. Nathan Hill. Li Ruiyao Synchronic and diachronic analysis of a Southern Situ variety (Gyalrongic). Supervisor: Dr Yunfan Lai. Ha Minyeong Comparing Asian and Western Chinese learner perspectives: The New HSK level 3 Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language. Supervisor: Prof Lorna Carson. Zhu Honghui Multilingualism in Sino-foreign educational programs in China. Funded by TCD-China Scholarship Council Award. Supervisor: Prof Lorna Carson. Yau Ka Lo Negotiating Modern Childhood: A Social History of Children in Republican China (1912-1949). Funded by Irish Research Council Laureate Award CHINACHILD. Supervisor: Dr Isabella Jackson. Chan Pak Hei Multilingualism in Hong Kong. Supervisor: Dr Lorna Carson. Provost’s Ph.D. Project Award. Du Siyi Changing Representations of the Republic of China, 1912-1915 and 1940-1945: An Analysis of Chinese Public History Practice. Funded by a Provost’s PhD Project Award. Supervisor: Dr Isabella Jackson. Clare Morrison Identity and Irishmen in the Chinese Customs Service. Recipient of a North/South Postgraduate Scholarship. Supervisor: Dr Isabella Jackson.

 

Meet our Ph.D. Graduates

Wang Hongfei Teaching Fellow, School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences, TCD. PhD Thesis title: The Design and Evaluation of Intelligent Computer-Assisted Language Learning Tools for Beginner Learners of Mandarin Chinese". Supervisor: Dr Neasa Ní Chiaráin. Zhang Meishan School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences, TCD. PhD Thesis title: Media and Medical Equipment in the Republican Shanghai, 1912-1949. Kwok, Chung Kam School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences, TCD. PhD Thesis title: Self and Identity in Additional Language Learning Motivation: A Case Study of Learners of Chinese. Zhang Chang Education Officer, Post-Primary Languages Ireland. PhD Thesis title: Demotivation in Learning Chinese. Jiang Ning Assistant Professor in Chinese Studies, TCD. Ph.D Thesis title: Chinese Character Learning Strategies in Foreign Language Education. Jiang Renfeng Assistant Professor, Shandong University. Ph.D. Thesis title: The Language Learning Motivation of Chinese Postgraduate Students in Ireland from the Perspectives of Confucian Learning Philosophy. Shao Lijie Chinese Language Instructor, Dublin City University. Ph.D. Thesis title: Three Case Studies in English Medium Instruction in Higher Education Business Programmes in in Expanding Circle Countries: Japan China, and the Netherlands.