Current NYU Shanghai Global Research Initiatives Fellows

Cristina Colmena
PhD Candidate, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, GSAS
Email:
cc2917@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (February 15 - May 12)：

Colmena’s dissertation explores the relationship between image and fiction that emerges every time we look at photographs or archival footage. By approaching the photograph as a fragment or synecdoche of a world that we have to recreate in order to understand, the frame of the image becomes the border that marks the transition from the concrete to the fictionalized. In this way, the image becomes a kind of storytelling. Colmena’s research seeks to create contact with a language made of “images” - graphic symbols like ideograms that with different combinations can express very complex concepts and time.

 

Jia-Lin Liu
PhD Candidate, Department of International Education, Steinhardt
Email:
jll405@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (April 1 - May 14)： 

Liu and her faculty advisor, Dr. Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng, are working on a research project that seeks to address both research/literature gaps in knowledge and the needs of the Chinese immigrant families in New York. They plan to add a China component to the study and also plan to do some ethnographic fieldwork on family members and relatives in China that are connected to the Chinese families that they have been observing since the beginning of the study in New York/US. Through their ethnographic fieldwork in New York City, Liu and Cherng realized that in order to further address their research study and focus on the holistic and comprehensive view of the mechanisms of Chinese immigrants outlook on immigration and education - in a deeper ethnographic/ anthropological / sociological way - it is very important that the two understand and expand this study to understand not just the immigrants here in the US, but their sending families - the roots of where the families came from in China. 

 

Professor Kristen Day
Professor, Department of Technology, Culture, & Society, Tandon
Email:
kd1025@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (November 19 - December 16)： 

China’s rapid urbanization has been accompanied by high levels of ambient air pollution in many cities. The impacts of this air pollution for residents’ behavior are not well understood.  Working with Professor Lin Lin from East China Normal University, Professor Day will be conducting research on the impacts of air pollution on the everyday lives of Chinese residents, including impacts on physical activity and other areas.  Both professors will conduct online surveys and in-person interviews with key groups of Chinese residents in Shanghai and Beijing.  Professor Day’s aim is to understand the impacts of air pollution on behavior in the Chinese cultural context, including attitudes towards economic development, prior experience of pollution, and knowledge and attitudes towards health.

Linruo Ann Zhang
Master of Science Candidate, Department of Global Affairs, SPS
Email:
az456@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (November 5 - November 24)：

Zhang’s research focuses on how peace, economic development, and foreign policy cooperation are the interlinked components of China’s modern diplomacy.  In response to multi-polarization and economic globalization, the Chinese government advocates using cooperation to achieve peace and development, which rests on the principles of mutual advantage and win-win benefits in order to safeguard its economic interests and energy security.  In order to do this, China has had to increase its presence in the areas surrounding it.  China’s modernization and rise as a superpower depends on securing reliable access to natural resources, as China’s need for resources is becoming more crucial in today’s geopolitical competition. The $46 billion in development support of China-Pakistan Economic corridor (CPEC) is the largest international development-focused investment effort that China has ever attempted. This intensified Sino-Pakistani engagement could be a game-changer in Asia and the rest of the world. 

Juan Sanchez Herrera
PhD Candidate, Department of Nutrition and Food Studies, Steinhardt
Email:
jsh501@nyu.edu

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (Sept 4 - Nov 29)：

Sanchez Herrera’s research project examines how ingredient combinations and recipes develop over time. His methodological approximation draws upon network analysis, digital humanities, and economic history. Sanchez Herrera’s research relies on a new dataset consisting of approximately 6000 recipes spanning 40 years. case study of his dissertation is Colombia, South America. Although this is his particular focus, Sanchez Herrera is broadly interested in how food recipes change as countries develop, particularly as they embrace globalization. China, similarly to Colombia, has seen rapid developments over the last 40 years. Sanchez Herrera is particularly interested in seeing how food consumption and food recipes have changed in China to be able to draw comparisons. Sanchez Herrera is currently writing and analyzing her data (which is stored in the cloud), and therefore can work anywhere. At NYU Shanghai, he is particularly interested in collaborating with professor Dr. Heather Lee, whom he has contacted previously, as she studies Chinese food in New York City from a historical point of view. Furthermore, Sanchez Herrera anticipates collaborating with professor Dr. Anna Greenspan who studies food consumption and its rapid changes in Shanghai.