Jiaying Zhao

Jiaying Zhao is a PhD candidate in the Law Department of Fudan University, where she specializes in the study of Sino-foreign legal-cultural exchanges, comparative legal history and modern state-building issues. She has a wide range of research interests, including modern legal history, comparative law, and the history of political thought. She is currently working on her PhD dissertation, which focuses on the practice and perception of British lawyers towards Chinese civil law and custom in modern China.  Jiaying has been trained as an independent scholar since her master's period. Her master's thesis concentrated on the issue of state-building thought of Chinese intellectuals in the Late Qing. After graduating from her master's program, she is lucky to continue her studies at Fudan. During her PhD period, Jiaying has researched several interesting topics, including the political participation of Chinese elites in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and "Civilizing through the Court", which focuses on cases of cruelty to animals in the Shanghai International Settlement. Those research experiences enable her to study from a richer perspective. Besides her research, Jiaying also actively participates in academic worshops and organizes reading groups, enabling her to gain insights from diverse fields of expertise.