Tay Yu Xuan

Tay Yu Xuan is a final-year master’s student in the Department of History generously funded by FASS Scholarship in Buddhist Studies at the National University of Singapore. His research focuses on the relationship between the imperial states and various religious traditions in middle-period China (c.7th century–c.12th century). He is currently completing a master’s thesis studying the political legitimation of imperial prefaces during the Tang dynasty.

Wang Sisi

Wang Sisi is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies at the National University of Singapore. Her research interests include Chinese Buddhism, sacred space, pilgrimage, social history of late imperial and modern China, and Sino-Southeast Asian interactions. She obtained a PhD in Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore, with a dissertation on Mount Jiuhua in late imperial and Republican China. Wang’s postdoctoral research focuses on transnational Buddhist interactions in modern Asia. She aims to investigate the role of Buddhist sacred sites in the conduct of religious diplomacy, as well as the Buddhist networks between China and the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia.

Ng Xiang Yun

Ng Xiang Yun is an honours year student in the Department of History at the National University of Singapore. Since stumbling upon a module on Chinese religion in her second year, she has developed an interest in the role of religion in everyday lives, past and present. She is fascinated by the process of history writing and is always excited to hear and learn from different perspectives. Currently, while not fretting over research or thesis writing, you can find her relaxing with a good Korean drama or hunting for good food across Singapore.

Tan Guan-Fan

Currently an honours year NUS student, Tan Guan-Fan is a History major with two minors in both Art History and Southeast Asian Studies. Passionate about diasporas, religions, art history, and material culture, he is a practising artist and researcher who draws cultural inspirations from his Teochew heritage and subsequently from gathering new experiences and insights. In 2022, Guan-Fan received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Ngee Ann Kongsi and published his Yueh Hai Ching temple research in Berita to raise greater social awareness about its art forms. When he is not researching, Guan-Fan paints, cycles, and photographs unique and intriguing things.

Jack Meng-Tat Chia

Jack Meng-Tat Chia is Assistant Professor of History and Religious Studies at the National University of Singapore. He is a historian of religion whose research has focused on Buddhism and Chinese popular religion. He specializes in Buddhism in maritime Southeast Asia and has broader research interests in migration, diasporas, transnationalism, pilgrimage, and religious diplomacy. He is the author of Monks in Motion: Buddhism and Modernity Across the South China Sea (Oxford, 2020), which was awarded the 2021 EuroSEAS Humanities Book Prize. This book was recently translated into Indonesian under the title Kiprah Para Mahabiksu: Agama Buddha dan Modernitas di Asia Tenggara Maritim (Karaniya, 2022), and a Chinese translation is underway. Chia is currently working on two book projects: Sisters in Dharma: A Buddhist Feminist in Postcolonial Indonesia and Diplomatic Dharma: Buddhist Diplomacy in Modern Asia, which is supported by the 2020 Social Science and Humanities Research Fellowship awarded by the Social Science Research Council Singapore. In 2022 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.