Current NYU Shanghai Global Research Initiatives Fellows

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (June 23 - July 25):

By some estimates, a near majority of migrant children in Shanghai do not hold Shanghai registration, or hukou (??), and therefore legally cannot access academic high school in the city (Cherng and Han, 2018)1. As a result, migrant families will often send their children to their rural homes of registration to continue their schooling. In recent years, it is not uncommon to find children as young as eleven, who were born and raised in Shanghai, enrolling in rural boarding schools without the company of their parents. This transition is often tremendously harmful for children and their mental health and few interventions/programs exist that explicitly address these issues.

Professor Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng proposes to build on an intervention created and launched in 2021. The NYU Shanghai College and Career Lab (NYUSH-CCL) is a free two-week summer program that is designed to serve rural migrant children in three ways using drama therapy and play. First, the program provides them with social and emotional skills to forge and maintain strong relationships with peers and adults to help many with their transition back to rural areas, which is necessary for them to continue their high school education and beyond. Second, it teaches different learning strategies to help children acclimate to their new school systems. Third, the program has guest speakers and activities that span various disciplines and industries to help children find and articulate their academic and career interests and passions. NYUSH-CCL has partnered with two large community-based organizations that provide after-school activities for migrant children, as well as Disney Asia and Shanghai Disney Resorts. The expansion in summer 2024 will focus on better supporting parents in helping them navigate educational options for their children. As Shanghai increasingly funnels students into vocational education (as opposed to academic high schools), it is important that parents discuss these options with their children.

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (September 16 - December 15):

Véronique Mickisch’s dissertation explores the emergence of what she calls Stalinist economics in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s. Mickisch defines Stalinist economics as a particular form of economics that was rooted in the traditions of statism and economic autarky. Mickisch places the shift in the USSR in the 1920s in the context of the international trend toward economic autarky that was initiated by World War I.  At the same time, the Soviet example shows that alternatives to economic autarky did exist. Soviet economics had a variety of faces, but Stalinist economics was enforced through increasingly violent suppression of those who challenged it, culminating in the Terror of the 1930s. Mickisch’s research has significant implications for our understanding of the development not only of economics in the West but also in China. Here, political and economic thought after 1949 developed under significant influence of the trends that had emerged and become dominant in the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, alternative, internationalist approaches to Marxist economics whose proponents were murdered in the Great Terror remained unknown. 

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (September 23 - December 13):

Focusing on the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), Jinyi Liu’s dissertation examines the court production of marble quarried from Fangshan, a county at the southwest corner of Beijing. Stones extracted from this region have been mainly known as hanbaiyu (Chinese white jade) and qingbaishi (blue-white stone). Rather than focusing on static, finished artifacts, Liu explores the ever-evolving life of the material, tracing the transformations of the stone from a block of freshly extracted raw material to an intricately carved sculpture. This project offers new insights into the studies of Qing and East Asian art through experimenting with a conceptual framework that places the material, the environment, and human labor as agents in a network of shared authorship. 

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (September 9 - October 29):

Fallon Meng’s research project focuses on the invasive spotted lanternfly (SLF), particularly studying its genetic diversity and thermal tolerance in urban environments, using New York City as a primary study site. The spotted lanternfly (SLF) causes significant damage to U.S. agriculture and the wine industry by feeding on a wide range of plants, leading to reduced crop yields and quality, and requiring costly management efforts. This fellowship in Shanghai provides Meng a unique opportunity to compare the SLF populations in its native region (China) with those in an invasive setting (NYC). This comparative study of genetic makeup and phenotypic adaptations of SLF between NYC and Shanghai will shed light on how urban environments influence genetic variation and thermal tolerance in invasive species.  It also allows for a direct assessment of how SLF adapts to new environments, contributing significantly to invasive genetics. Understanding these dynamics in Shanghai's context is vital for developing effective control strategies for SLF populations in urban areas worldwide, including NYC. 

Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (July 1 - July 26):

Professor Yang Feng’s research project, specializing in high-dimensional multi- task and transfer learning inference, is a natural complement to NYU Shanghai's commitment to advanced data science and artificial intelligence. The project is structured around three pivotal goals. First, Professor Feng is  focused on developing innovative manifold-based multi-task learning algorithms, which are crucial for understanding and processing complex data structures. This aligns with NYU Shanghai's cutting-edge research in AI. Second, he aims to advance the field by clustering multi-task data in high-dimensional spaces, a challenging task given the presence of noise and outliers. This aspect of Professor Feng’s research is particularly relevant to the real- world applications of machine learning, an area NYU Shanghai is deeply invested in. Third, his work delves into exploring adaptive, robust learning and transfer techniques. These are essential for the development of flexible AI systems that can adjust to various scenarios and data environments, mirroring the dynamic nature of research at NYU Shanghai. Professor Feng’s potential collaboration with Dr. Christina Wang, an esteemed expert in deep reinforcement learning and large language models at NYU Shanghai, is an exciting prospect. This partnership stands to significantly enhance the depth and breadth of Professor Feng’s research. Dr. Wang's expertise in these areas will not only provide valuable insights into his project but also bridge the gap between theoretical research and practical, real-world applications. Together, their collaborative efforts are poised to contribute substantially to the fields of machine learning and AI.