Faculty

Chikako Takehara

ctakehara@fas.harvard.edu

Preceptor in Japanese

A young woman in a loose-fitting white top with shoulder-length straight black hair smiles at the camera in front of a background of flowering bushes.

Kwok Leong Tang

kwokleongtang@fas.harvard.edu

Lecturer on East Asian Languages and Civilizations

Digital China Project Manager

Kwok-leong Tang serves as a lecturer for the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and the Managing Director of the Digital China Initiative at Harvard University. By training, he is a historian. He received his bachelor's and master's...

Karen Thornber

thornber@fas.harvard.edu

Harry Tuchman Levin Professor in Literature and Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations

Richard L. Menschel Faculty Director, Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning

Walter Channing Cabot Fellow

Harvard College Professor

Karen L. Thornber is Harry Tuchman Levin Professor in Literature and Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, as well as Richard L. Menschel Faculty Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Harvard College Professor , Walter...

Xiaofei Tian

stian@fas.harvard.edu

Ford Foundation Professor of East Asian Studies

After teaching at Colgate University and Cornell University, Xiaofei Tian joined Harvard EALC in 2000. While her main teaching and research area is Chinese literature and cultural history of the Middle Period (first through thirteenth century CE), she has...

A Chinese woman with grey hair and glasses looks at the camera penetratively

Danica Truscott

dtruscott@fas.harvard.edu

Preceptor on Classical Japanese (Bungo) and Kanbun

Danica Truscott is a scholar of premodern Japanese literature who specializes in works from the early and classical periods (710-1185). She received her Ph.D. in 2022 from UCLA’s Department of Asian Languages and Cultures. Dr. Truscott also holds an A.M...

Leonard van der Kuijp

vanderk@fas.harvard.edu

Professor 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...

Thu Vo

thuvo@fas.harvard.edu

Language Instructor in Vietnamese

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David Wang

dwang@fas.harvard.edu

Edward C. Henderson Professor of Chinese Literature

On leave Fall 2026

David Der-wei Wang holds a joint appointment in Comparative Literature. He is Director of CCK Foundation Inter-University Center for Sinological Studies, and Academician, Academia Sinica. His research interests include modern and contemporary Chinese...

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Ying-Chieh Wang

yingchieh_wang@fas.harvard.edu

Preceptor in Chinese

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.

I-Chuan Wei

ichuanwei@fas.harvard.edu

Acting Preceptor in Chinese

Language Instructor in Chinese

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Matthew Wild

mwild@fas.harvard.edu

Preceptor 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...