East Asian Studies Affiliated Faculty
The following faculty members from across the University may be available to serve as thesis advisors to East Asian Studies concentrators. Concentrators writing an interdisciplinary thesis may choose more than one advisor from different departments, in order to better guide their research and writing.
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Leonard van der Kuijp
vanderk@fas.harvard.eduProfessor of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies
Chair, Committee on Inner Asia and Altaic Studies
On Leave Fall 2024
Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp is Professor of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies and chairs the Committee on Inner Asian and Altaic Studies. Best known for his studies of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist thought, he is the author of numerous works. Recent publications...
Linlin Xiong
linlin_xiong@gse.harvard.eduActing Preceptor in Chinese
Language Instructor in Chinese
Mark C. Elliott
elliott3@fas.harvard.eduMark Schwartz Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History
Vice Provost for International Affairs
Mark Elliott has been at Harvard since 2003, having earned his B.A. and M.A. at Yale and his Ph.D. at University of California at Berkeley. His first book, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China , based primarily on...
Matthew Wild
mwild@fas.harvard.eduPreceptor in Literary Sinitic
Matthew Wild works on classical Chinese literature and intellectual history. He is completing a book manuscript titled Sound Learning: Song and the Aesthetics of Evidence in High Qing China , which offers a fresh account of eighteenth-century Chinese...
Melissa McCormick
mccorm@fas.harvard.eduDepartment Chair
Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Japanese Art and Culture
Harvard College Professor
Melissa McCormick earned a dual B.A. in art history and Japanese language and literature from the University of Michigan (1990), her Ph.D. in Japanese Art History from Princeton University (2000), and studied at Gakushūin University (1996-98) while...
Michael Puett
puett@fas.harvard.eduWalter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History and Anthropology
Harvard College Professor
Director, Harvard University Asia Center
Michael Puett is the Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History and Anthropology. He holds a joint appointment in the EALC and Anthropology departments. His interests focus on the inter-relations between religion, history, anthropology, and philosophy...
Michael Szonyi
szonyi@fas.harvard.eduFrank Wen-Hsiung Wu Memorial Professor of Chinese History
Michael Szonyi is Professor of Chinese History and former Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. He is a social historian of late imperial and modern China. His research focuses on the local history of southeast China...
Nichimin Lu
nichiminlu@fas.harvard.eduLanguage Instructor in Chinese
Nichimin LU received her B.A. in Chinese Language and Literature from Tsinghua University in 2014, and finished her Master’s degree in the Regional Studies - East Asian Program at Harvard in 2016. In EALC she looks into the poetic space and the poetics of...
Paulina Kolata
pkolata@fas.harvard.eduAssistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Paulina (Paula) Kolata is a scholar of religion in Japan, specializing in Buddhism, demographic change, materiality, religious economies, lay-temple networks, and ecologies of practice. Her research combines ethnography, archival work, and creative...
Peter K. Bol
pkbol@fas.harvard.eduCharles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
On leave Fall 2026
Peter K. Bol is the Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. His research is centered on the history of China’s cultural elites at the national and local levels from the 7 th to the 17 th century. He is the author of "This...
Ryuichi Abe
rabe@fas.harvard.eduReischauer Institute Professor of Japanese Religions
Interim Director of Undergraduate Studies
Walter C. Cabot Fellowship (2024-25)
After completing an undergraduate degree in Economics at Keio University, Ryūichi Abé acquired a master’s degree from School of Advanced International Affairs, the Johns Hopkins University. He then turned to Religious Studies and was awarded an M. Phil...
Shigehisa Kuriyama
hkuriyam@fas.harvard.eduReischauer Institute Professor of Cultural History
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Director, Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies
On leave 2026-27
Shigehisa Kuriyama received his A.B. degree from Harvard's Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations in 1977 and an A.M. degree in 1978. After completing acupuncture studies in Tokyo, he entered Harvard's Department of the History of Science...
Si Nae Park
sinaepark@fas.harvard.eduAssociate Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Si Nae Park is Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. She earned her Ph.D. in Asian Studies from the University of British Columbia in 2012. As a scholar of the literature and literary culture of Chosŏn Korea...
Sun Joo Kim
sjkim@fas.harvard.eduHarvard-Yenching Professor of Korean History
Sun Joo Kim is Harvard-Yenching Professor of Korean History in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. After completing an undergraduate degree in history at Yonsei University, she received a master’s degree and Ph...
Sunyoung Park
sunyoung_park@fas.harvard.eduLanguage Instructor in Korean
Sunyoung Park joined the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations as a language Instructor in the Korean Language Program in Fall 2023. Prior to coming to Harvard, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and served as a Foreign Language...
Thomas P. Kelly
thomas_kelly@fas.harvard.eduAssistant Professor in East Asian Languages and Civilizations
I am a scholar of Chinese literature with related research interests in the history of writing, material culture, and pre-modern media studies. My first book, The Inscription of Things: Writing and Materiality in Early Modern China (Columbia UP, 2023)...
Tomiko Yoda
yoda@fas.harvard.eduTakashima Professor of Japanese Humanities
On leave 2025-26
Tomiko Yoda received her B.A. in Religion from Wesleyan University, M.A. in Oriental Philosophy at Nagoya University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Japanese from Stanford. She previously taught at Duke, Cornell, and Stanford, and is a recipient of fellowships...
Uyen Nguyen
unguyen@fas.harvard.eduAssistant Professor of History and of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Uyen T. Nguyen is a historian of modern Vietnam with a strong interest in historical transitions and the interactions between politico-economic changes and socio-cultural identity. Her current book project, Beloved City, Depraved City: Communist Takeovers...
Wai-yee Li
wyli@fas.harvard.edu1879 Professor of Chinese Literature
On leave 2026-27
Wai-yee Li is the 1879 Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University, where she has taught since 2000. Li’s research spans topics ranging from early Chinese thought and narrative to late imperial Chinese literature and culture. Her recent...
