Welcoming new Fellows to the HKAH (2024)

March 18, 2024

The Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities would like to extend a warm welcome to five new Fellows and five Early Career Fellows, who were elected in 2024. Learn more about the new Fellows below.

Fellows

Prof. ERIC FRIGINAL

Eric Friginal is Professor and Head of Department of English and Communication at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). He is also the director of PolyU’s Research Center in Professional Communication in English (RCPCE). Before moving to Hong Kong, he was Professor and Director of International Programs at the Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL, College of Arts and Sciences at Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He specializes in applied corpus linguistics, quantitative research, language policy and planning, technology and language teaching, sociolinguistics, cross-cultural communication, discipline-specific writing, and the analysis of spoken professional discourse in the workplace. His recent publications include The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Approaches to Discourse Analysis (2022), Global Aviation English Research (forthcoming), and English in Global Aviation: Context, Research, and Pedagogy (2020). He is the founding co- editor-in-chief of Applied Corpus Linguistics (ACORP) Journal

Read more about Prof. Friginal here.

Prof. CHU Yik-yi, CINDY (朱益宜)

Cindy Yik-yi Chu got her B.A. and M.Phil. degrees from the University of Hong Kong. She received her Ph.D. degree from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. When she was in Hawaii, she obtained the degree fellowship from the East-West Center, where she was also awarded the Certificate of Education and Training.  

She was Associate Director of the David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies (LEWI), Hong Kong Baptist University from 2011 to 2017. She was also Program Director of MSSc in Contemporary China Studies, HKBU from 2015 to 2017. 

She writes on the Catholic Church and the Catholic sisters in Hong Kong and China. She has published 17 books and 50 some articles in edited volumes and journals. Her books most often quoted were: The Maryknoll Sisters in Hong Kong, 1921-1969 (Palgrave, 2004) and the Chinese translation; and Edited, The Diaries of the Maryknoll Sisters in Hong Kong, 1921-1966 (Palgrave, 2007). 

Her recent works include: Edited. The Catholic Church, the Bible, and Evangelization in China (Palgrave 2021); Edited with Paul P. Mariani, People, Communities, and the Catholic Church in China (Palgrave, 2020); and The Chinese Sisters of the Precious Blood and the Evolution of the Catholic Church (Palgrave, 2016). 

She is now editing The Palgrave Handbook of the Catholic Church in East Asia (China, Japan, Korea) of 40 chapters and 1,200 pages. She is also writing The Biography of Cardinal John Tong. 

Read more about Prof. Chu here.

Prof. chen xiaohua, sylvia (陳曉華)

Sylvia Xiaohua Chen is  Chair Professor of Social and Cultural Psychology in the Department of Applied Social Sciences and an Associate Dean of the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She is also the Director of the Yan Oi Tong Au Suet Ming Child Development Centre and an Associate Director of the Mental Health Research Centre. 

Her research focuses on personality and social psychology, cross-cultural psychology, as well as the psychosocial and cultural aspects of mental health. She investigates the social impact of bilingualism and biculturalism, as well as the effects of cultural contexts on the psychological functioning of bilingual and bicultural individuals. She has been developing a research program that explores the influence of globalization on the changes experienced by bicultural individuals in mindsets, values, beliefs, and identifications as a result of acculturation. 

Professor Chen is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Hong Kong Psychological Society, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (now Advance HE), UK. She received the Outstanding International Psychologist Award conferred by the American Psychological Association (APA) Division 52 (International Psychology) in 2022 and was awarded the RGC Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship Scheme in 2018. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology and has served as President of the Asian Association of Social Psychology. 

Read more about Prof. Chen here.

Prof. zhang meilan (張美蘭)

Zhang Meilan is a Professor in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research interests include History of Chinese Language, Zen literature language, World history of Chinese Language Education, Manchu-Chinese Language Contact and Comparison. She have published15 professional research books and more than 160 theses on various topics in Journal articles.

Research on Chan Language (1998), Research on the Grammar of Zu Tang Ji 祖堂集(2003) and Correction and Annotation of Zu Tang Ji祖堂集(2009)are essential for academic circles to study Zen language. The monograph Textual Criticism and Language Study of Qingwen Zhiyao (2013) combines Mandarin Chinese and dialects, identifying the regional differences of the six major literary versions, and providing development clues for the dialects' mutual influence on Mandarin. An analysis of the diachronic evolution of Shanghainese and Cantonese lexical and syntactic types since the mid-nineteenth century supports this contention.

A number of monographs, such as The Compilation on Chinese Textbook in Japan Meiji Period (2011, 1-26 volumes), Research on Mandarin Literature Overseas and the Language in Ming and Qing Dynasties (2011), Textual Criticism and Language Study of Qingwen Zhiyao 清文指要(2013), and Textual Criticism and Language Study of the Guide to Mandarin官話指南 (2017), have made a significant impact in the academia, promoted the study of Chinese in the Ming and Qing dynasties and expanded the range of study of Chinese Mandarin in Ming and Qing dynasties.

Literature Texts and Studies of Chinese in the Ming and Qing Dynasties (2022), has been proposed an effective research method to conduct a comparative study based on multiple texts of Chinese language during Ming and Qing dynasties.

Read more about Prof. Zhang here.

Prof. chung po yin (鍾寶賢)

A historian of Asian socio-economic and business history, Stephanie Chung Po Yin is described by her peers as a "wonderful storyteller" who meticulously documents the adventures of various groups of diaspora traders in Asia, combining historical depth with contemporary focus. She is enthusiastic about writing the kind of history that tells stories as well as making arguments. The history she is interested in is how these individuals and diasporic communities interpret and use the past to construct the present. Her research focuses on the historical and contemporary movements of people, goods and ideas that have linked South China, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Her research shows how diasporic groups have shaped Asian societies, economies, identities and politics over the last few millennia.

Chung holds a B.A. (1st class) in History from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a Ph.D. from the University of Oxford. After teaching at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, she joined HKBU in 1994. Her teaching interests include social and economic history. She was a board member of the HKSAR Antiquities Advisory Board (2011-2017) and is currently a trustee of the Lord Wilson Heritage Trust (2021-present), a member of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Advisory Committee (2021-present). She has also served as Director of the Modern History Research Centre and has been involved in a number of funded research projects, commissions and consultancy projects (including one for a London-based business conglomerate - John Swire and Sons Limited and the Singapore-based Shaw Foundation) - and continues to explore the material and cultural changes associated with trade and imperial empires, diasporic communities, religious traditions and colonial encounters over the last two centuries.

Read more about Prof. Chung here.

Early Career Fellows

Prof. LEUNG Shuk Man (梁淑雯)

Leung Shuk Man received her Ph.D. in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She is an Assistant Professor in the School of Chinese and the Programme Coordinator of Hong Kong Studies at the University of Hong Kong. She specializes in modern and contemporary Chinese fiction, Hong Kong literature, and print media in Hong Kong’s cultural Cold War. Her first book Utopian Fiction in China: Genre, Print Culture, and Knowledge Formation, 1902–1912 was published by Brill in 2023. Her second book project, titled Identities in the Cold War: The Cultural Revolution Discourse in Hong Kong Print Media, 1966–1977,received funding from the Early Career Scheme (2017–2020) and the General Research Fund (2022–2024). Her major publications appear in Modern China (forthcoming), Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Asian Studies Review, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Cultural Studies, Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese and Comparative Literature Studies, together with Chinese articles published in top-tier CSSCI (Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index) indexed journals. She also won the Hong Kong Publishing Biennial Awards and received funding from the Lord Wilson Heritage Trust in 2021. 

Read more about Prof. Leung here.

DR. LI KIN SUM, SAMMY (李建深)

Kin Sum (Sammy) LI, PhD (Princeton 2015), is Associate Professor at the Department of History, Hong Kong Baptist University. He obtained his BA degree in Translation and MPhil degree in East Asian Studies from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is interested in the history of mass production in the ancient world and he attempts to study industrial art with the assistance of science and technology. He is working on articles and a book manuscript on the arts of ancient China. Recently he developed an interest in the history of tea cultures.

Read more about Dr. Li here.

DR. JOHN ROGERS

John Rogers is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Communication at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. 

My research is focused on how second languages are learned and how they might best be taught. I have a particular interest in the cognitive processes that underlie second language development. My research is empirical and has investigated topics such as the effects of second language practice, intentional vs. incidental learning, the development of implicit and explicit knowledge, task-based language teaching, and methodological issues related to research in these areas. 

Read more about Dr. Rogers here.

prof. Collier NOGUES

Collier Nogues is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She writes at the intersection of digital and documentary poetics, with an emphasis on making connections across decolonization and demilitarization movements in the U.S. and in the Pacific. Her poetry collections include the hybrid print/interactive volume The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground (Drunken Boat, 2015) and On the Other Side, Blue (Four Way, 2011). Her creative and scholarly work has been supported by fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, and the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, and her practice-based research has earned the Research Grant Council’s Early Career Award. 

Professor Nogues’s writing has appeared in Poetics, Jacket2, ASAPJournal, The Volta, At Length,Pleiades, jubilat, Tupelo Quarterly, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day Project, and elsewhere. She is a core collaborator in the Yale-NUS project DOKYU, which gathers artists, writers, and historians to explore transdisciplinary approaches to archives. She also edits poetry forJuked

Read more about Prof. Nogues here.

dr. nathaniel ming curran

Nate Ming Curran is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Communication at Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). At PolyU he is affiliated with the Research Centre for Professional Communication in English. He received his PhD in 2020 from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. He conducts research at the intersection of Applied Linguistics, Communication, Cultural Studies His work appears in more than 20 international journals, including Applied Linguistics, Journal of Consumer Culture, and Information Communication & Society

Read more about Dr. Curran here.