Experience

KESWICK FOUNDATION LIMITED
• Project Manager

  • Oct 2019 - Present


Earthquakes without Frontiers

• Research Assistant

  • Aug 2015 - Oct 2018

  In Country (China) Research Assistant (Social Science Stream) for Earthquake without Frontiers: A Partnership for Increasing Resilience to Seismic Hazard in the Continents (funded by UK Research Councils and Economic and Social Research Council) which is a global partnership aimed at enhancing resilience to earthquakes by means of a transdisciplinary approach. Involved to engage stakeholders and initiate research on disaster risk reduction (DRR) in rural environments to inform sustainable intervention design and national DRR policy-making in China. • Led a team of local stakeholders (NGOs leaders, rural villagers, government officials) to prepare and implement the building of a rural disaster risk reduction pilot model in Sha'anxi Province that aims to be replicated across China. I was invited by the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs to share my research findings at The Seventh National Comprehensive Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Conference in May 2016. • Played a key role in project management and conducting field research in China. As the only field researcher who are fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin, English and a certain knowledge of local dialect, I acted as a key liaison to report on the field progress, and to communicate on a regular basis between stakeholders in China and collaborators in the UK and other countries. • Conducted research and practice on transdisciplinarity approach to ensure inclusiveness and sustainability of the project in China. The insights on the approach to maximise the impact of science were shared in a workshop host by the University of Oxford and The Fourth International Conference on Practice Research in May 2017. • Coordinated and organised In-Country Interim meetings among stakeholders in China and the Final Conference of the project in Xi'an in June 2017.



Beijing Normal University

• China
• Higher Education
• 500 - 600 Employee

• Research Associate

  • Apr 2014 - Jul 2015

  Team member of the 2013 Ya'an Earthquake Disaster Recovery Programme (funded by China Poverty Alleviation Foundation) which aimed at optimising social recovery efforts and evaluating the role of NGOs in disaster reconstruction one year after the Earthquake in Sichuan Province, China. Worked in a multidisciplinary research team from Beijing to enter the earthquake epicenter one year after the event to participate in an on-going monitoring and evaluation of recovery progress in the affected townships. • Played a key role in research design of sub-programme evaluation in the post-disaster context. Key themes focused on preparing (i.e. Chinese disaster management system in post-Wenchuan earthquake era, potential of public-private partnership in disaster contexts) had informed the development of a questionnaire toolkit; and fed into on-going scholarly exchange and grass-root NGOs training materials in Sichuan Province. • Responsibilities in the field: co-interviewing local government officials and NGOs leaders experienced the disaster first-hand; observing the psychological status of interviewees; advising project leader on themes for de-briefing. The process called for pro-actively overcoming challenges on the spot, namely, language barrier, sensitivity of cultural norms and traumatized human behaviours. • Led the part of qualitative data analysis. Drafted manuscripts for scholarly publication and fed established concepts and ideas to project leader for knowledge dissemination across the academic and NGO sectors. It earned a sponsorship from China Poverty Alleviation Foundation as one of the representatives of the People’s Republic of China (NGO sector) to attend the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Japan in March 2015.