Chinese Language Teaching Staff

Director

Aaron Molnar

Aaron Molnar is an Environmental Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for the Environment and a historian of the material cultural, environmental, and global history of East Asia. His research interests focus on Goryeo Korea’s (918–1392) integration into...
Aaron Molnar photo

Aaron Throness

Ph.D. Candidate in Chinese History
Aaron Throness is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations specializing in the political history of Ming China. Aaron received his BA in Asian Area Studies (2020) and MA in History (2022) from the University of British...
Aaron Throness, a man with brown hair and beard, smiles in the great outdoors

Adam Frost

Speculation and Profiteering: The Entrepreneurial Transformation of Socialist China
Headshot of Adam frost, showing a smiling young man with short brown hair, glasses, and facial hair.

Alexander Akin

Printed Maps in Late Ming Publishing Culture: A Trans-Regional Perspective
2009pbch.png

Senior Preceptor

Aaron Molnar

Aaron Molnar is an Environmental Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for the Environment and a historian of the material cultural, environmental, and global history of East Asia. His research interests focus on Goryeo Korea’s (918–1392) integration into...
Aaron Molnar photo

Aaron Throness

Ph.D. Candidate in Chinese History
Aaron Throness is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations specializing in the political history of Ming China. Aaron received his BA in Asian Area Studies (2020) and MA in History (2022) from the University of British...
Aaron Throness, a man with brown hair and beard, smiles in the great outdoors

Adam Frost

Speculation and Profiteering: The Entrepreneurial Transformation of Socialist China
Headshot of Adam frost, showing a smiling young man with short brown hair, glasses, and facial hair.

Alexander Akin

Printed Maps in Late Ming Publishing Culture: A Trans-Regional Perspective
2009pbch.png

Alexander Zahlten

Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Chair, Regional Studies East Asia
Alexander Zahlten's research interests center on film and audiovisual culture in East Asia, with a focus on Japan. His work explores fundamental shifts in how we engage with media through the connections between larger economic, social, and institutional...
Alex Zahlten, a man with a buzz-cut and glasses, smiles at the camera wearing a fashionable blazer

Alina Scotti

Ph.D. Candidate in East Asian Arts/Film/Cultural Studies
Alina Scotti is a PhD Candidate in East Asian Arts, Film, and Cultural Studies, where she specializes in the history of media, technology, and visual culture in modern China. Her dissertation examines changes in visual and textual modes of representation...
A Caucasian woman with long brown hair and fantastic eyebrows smiles at the camera

Allison Miller

Patronage, Politics, and the Emergence of Rock-Cut Tombs in Early Han China
2011mpac.png

Ami Tanahashi

Ph.D. Student in Japanese Literature
Ami Tanahashi studies contemporary Japanese literature, focusing on portrayals of girlhood and feminine adolescent identity. She received her B.A. from Soka University of America in 2017 and recently received her M.A. from the University of Washington in...
A Japanese woman with long hair wearing a blue coat smiles at the camera.

Amy Zhang

Ph.D. Candidate in Chinese Literature
Amy Zhang holds a B.A. and M.A. in Chinese Language and Literature from Nankai University. She received her second M.A. from Regional Studies—East Asia at Harvard University in 2019 with a focus in pre-modern Chinese literary culture. Her research...
A Chinese woman with a ponytail wearing a blazer looks smartly at the camera while standing in a Zen garden

Andrew Gordon

Lee and Juliet Folger Fund Professor of History
On leave Fall 2025
Andrew Gordon’s teaching and research focus primarily on modern Japan but he has also taught Japan’s premodern history and courses on comparative history of labor. He has written, edited, or translated numerous books, including one that won the John King...
112807_gordon_andrew_014.jpg

Andrew Rodekohr

Conjuring the Masses: The Figure of the Crowd in Modern Chinese Literature and Visual Culture
2012dwcl.png

Anna Jungeun Lee

Resistant Consumerism: The Politics of Consumption in South Korea during the Park Chung Hee Period (1961-1979)
White text on a red background reading "2021. HEAL/Korea. Carter Eckert."

Annie Zhanling Wang

Ph.D. Candidate in HEAL/China
Annie Zhanling Wang is a social historian of late imperial China and Inner Asia, with a focus on gender, family relations, voice, and empire. She has written about friendships between Manchu women in Beijing and Han women in Jiangnan in the eighteenth...
Annie Zhanling Wang

Ariel Fox

Southern Capital: Staging Commerce in Seventeenth-Century Suzhou
2015wlcl.png

Preceptors

Fangzheng Zhang

Preceptor in Chinese
Interim Senior Preceptor in Chinese
Acting Director of Chinese Language Program (2026)
Fangzheng Zhang is the Interim Senior Preceptor in Chinese in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University and serves as the Acting Director of the Chinese Language Program in 2026. He has been teaching at Harvard since...
A Chinese man with short hair sits on a piece of architecture and smiles at the camera

Matthew Wild

Preceptor in Literary Sinitic
Matthew Wild works on classical Chinese literature and intellectual history. He is completing a book manuscript titled Sounding Public: Voice and the Aesthetics of Evidence in High Qing China , which offers a fresh account of eighteenth-century Chinese...
Matthew Wild

Ying-Chieh Wang

Preceptor in Chinese
On Leave Spring 2026
Ying-Chieh Wang is a Preceptor in Chinese in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, where she has been teaching since 2020. Before joining Harvard, she taught at Wake Forest University and National Taiwan...
Ying-Chieh Wang, a Chinese woman with long hair and a black sweater over a white shirt, smiles at the camera.

Yuxiao Du

Preceptor in Chinese
Yuxiao Du ( 杜宇潇 ) has been teaching at Harvard since 2019. He has taught elementary, intermediate, and pre-advanced levels in intensive and non-intensive settings, working with both heritage and non-heritage learners. Over the summer, he taught at Harvard...
A Chinese man with glasses smiles in front of a New Orleans street sign

Drill Instructors

Aaron Molnar

Aaron Molnar is an Environmental Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for the Environment and a historian of the material cultural, environmental, and global history of East Asia. His research interests focus on Goryeo Korea’s (918–1392) integration into...
Aaron Molnar photo

Aaron Throness

Ph.D. Candidate in Chinese History
Aaron Throness is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations specializing in the political history of Ming China. Aaron received his BA in Asian Area Studies (2020) and MA in History (2022) from the University of British...
Aaron Throness, a man with brown hair and beard, smiles in the great outdoors

Adam Frost

Speculation and Profiteering: The Entrepreneurial Transformation of Socialist China
Headshot of Adam frost, showing a smiling young man with short brown hair, glasses, and facial hair.

Alexander Akin

Printed Maps in Late Ming Publishing Culture: A Trans-Regional Perspective
2009pbch.png

Alexander Zahlten

Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Chair, Regional Studies East Asia
Alexander Zahlten's research interests center on film and audiovisual culture in East Asia, with a focus on Japan. His work explores fundamental shifts in how we engage with media through the connections between larger economic, social, and institutional...
Alex Zahlten, a man with a buzz-cut and glasses, smiles at the camera wearing a fashionable blazer

Alina Scotti

Ph.D. Candidate in East Asian Arts/Film/Cultural Studies
Alina Scotti is a PhD Candidate in East Asian Arts, Film, and Cultural Studies, where she specializes in the history of media, technology, and visual culture in modern China. Her dissertation examines changes in visual and textual modes of representation...
A Caucasian woman with long brown hair and fantastic eyebrows smiles at the camera

Allison Miller

Patronage, Politics, and the Emergence of Rock-Cut Tombs in Early Han China
2011mpac.png

Ami Tanahashi

Ph.D. Student in Japanese Literature
Ami Tanahashi studies contemporary Japanese literature, focusing on portrayals of girlhood and feminine adolescent identity. She received her B.A. from Soka University of America in 2017 and recently received her M.A. from the University of Washington in...
A Japanese woman with long hair wearing a blue coat smiles at the camera.

Amy Zhang

Ph.D. Candidate in Chinese Literature
Amy Zhang holds a B.A. and M.A. in Chinese Language and Literature from Nankai University. She received her second M.A. from Regional Studies—East Asia at Harvard University in 2019 with a focus in pre-modern Chinese literary culture. Her research...
A Chinese woman with a ponytail wearing a blazer looks smartly at the camera while standing in a Zen garden

Andrew Gordon

Lee and Juliet Folger Fund Professor of History
On leave Fall 2025
Andrew Gordon’s teaching and research focus primarily on modern Japan but he has also taught Japan’s premodern history and courses on comparative history of labor. He has written, edited, or translated numerous books, including one that won the John King...
112807_gordon_andrew_014.jpg

Andrew Rodekohr

Conjuring the Masses: The Figure of the Crowd in Modern Chinese Literature and Visual Culture
2012dwcl.png

Anna Jungeun Lee

Resistant Consumerism: The Politics of Consumption in South Korea during the Park Chung Hee Period (1961-1979)
White text on a red background reading "2021. HEAL/Korea. Carter Eckert."

Annie Zhanling Wang

Ph.D. Candidate in HEAL/China
Annie Zhanling Wang is a social historian of late imperial China and Inner Asia, with a focus on gender, family relations, voice, and empire. She has written about friendships between Manchu women in Beijing and Han women in Jiangnan in the eighteenth...
Annie Zhanling Wang

Ariel Fox

Southern Capital: Staging Commerce in Seventeenth-Century Suzhou
2015wlcl.png