She received her Ph.D. in anthropology from Australian National University in 2009. Research interests are ecological anthropology, cross-border ethnic groups in Southeast Asia, and De’ang people in Yunnan. In recent publications include Identity, Relationships and Difference: the Social Life of Tea in a group of Mon-Khmer Speaking People along the China-Myanmar Frontier (monograph, Yunnan University Press 2011), “Tea and Ang: The Market Economy of A Group of Mon-Khmer Speaking Tea Planters in Yunnan” (The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 2010), “Linguistic Collection and the Tea World of the De’ang Ethnic Group” (Journal of Guangxi Minzu University 2013), and “Disaster Warning and Phenological Calendar of Farming Activities of De’ang Ethnic Group” (Journal of Southwest Minzu University 2013).