Greater China

Melons produce many seeds, making the melon shape a traditional symbol of fertility and prosperity in Chinese culture. But the historical debate about how melons made their way to modern tables is as long and twisted as the vines they grow on.

Long gone are the days when smartphones were a novelty, when a finger tap on a touch-sensitive screen could thrill a user with immediate access to photos, videos and games.

Uluğ Kuzuoğlu’s new book discusses 20th-century reforms of the Chinese writing system in the context of a growing information economy. Throughout the 20th century, Chinese characters were at risk of disappearing. In his new book “Codes of Modernity: Chinese Scripts in the Global Information Age,” Assistant Professor of History Uluğ Kuzuoğlu explores how the rise of […]

Ruochen Chen, a doctoral candidate in the Department of History in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has won a Gale Non-Residential Fellowship from the Association for Asian Studies (AAS). The fellowship is intended to help scholars expand the fields of Asian studies for research and teaching, and to foster the skills to apply […]

The McDonnell International Scholars Academy at Washington University, with support from the Office of the Provost, awards seed grants that stimulate high-impact research linking university experts with our partners around the world. These investments help research teams, often representing cross-disciplinary fields, demonstrate the power and potential of their work. 

Sociocultural anthropologist Geoff Childs shares photos from his research in Nepal, where he has spent decades studying demographic trends in a highland Buddhist community. Geoff Childs, professor of sociocultural anthropology, has been researching demographic trends in Nubri, a highland Buddhist community in Nepal’s Himalayas. He’s done fieldwork there since the ‘90s when he began studying […]

Ms. Ming Zu decided to pursue her graduate degree at Olin Business School at Washington University after moving to St. Louis, As the director of Global Category Management at Emerson Systems and Solutions, Ming leads a very diversified global category management organization.

Li-Chen Cheng is a faculty director at the Brown School’s Center for Social Development, where she is recognized as a leader in developing Child Development Accounts (CDA) policy in Asia.

Chen Li graduated from Washington University School of Law with both his Doctor of Juridical Science and his Juris Doctor in that unconventional order.

Kenneth Olsen, the George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg Professor of Biology, frequently works with international colleagues to study the evolution and genetics of plants. Much of his focus is on rice, a crop that has been grown under human control for 10,000 years. Olsen explained that domesticated crops are like prolonged experiments in natural […]