I am an interdisciplinary social researcher with an established track record in critically exploring the experiences of Chinese diaspora communities and broadly underrepresented groups in sport, health and physical activity/education. This line of research sought to identify the nuance connections between subjectivities and social structures, addressing the challenges and opportunities into the impacts of various forms of inequalities.

My theoretical interest is to explore and challenge the established cultural imaginary and to produce new knowledge from epistemological loci other than the ones traditionally embraced by power. My approach focuses on widening the knowledge base that enables a bilateral flow of knowledge and reshapes the academic landscape characterised by ‘a doer and done to’ binary relationship. My thinking is informed by the fields of sociology, psychoanalysis and pedagogy.

My research also explores the use and development of qualitative research and creative research methodologies to construct and represent minority experiences. This includes the use of arts-based methods, (auto)ethnographic methods, narrative inquiry and digital methods.

I am deputy director of the Centre for Qualitative Research, and an ILM certified coach for the doctoral college network at University of Bath. Externally, I am an executive board member of the International Society of Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise, an editorial board member of Sport, Education and Society, an associate editor for Leisure Sciences, and an Adjunct Fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society in Western Sydney University. 

I am a named investigator on research funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 Scheme, Economic and Social Research Council, British Academy, Australian Research Grant Council, and philanthropic donations. 

I joined University of Bath in Janaury 2021 from Leeds Beckett University where I was a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow (2019-20). Prior to that, I was a senior lecturer at Western Sydney University (2013-18) after I gained my PhD from the University of Queensland in 2013 on a competitive UQ research scholarship. 

I welcome PhD applications in areas specifically related to under-represented groups (e.g. Chinese communities, international students, people with disability) that concern with the broad themes of inequalities, lived experiences, mental health, and social media in sport, physical activity/education. I am primary supervisor to four PGR students and they are carrying out research on: an ethnographic study in kitesurfing in the lives of diasabled people (on SWDTP scholarship); online hate in football on Chinese social media (on Vice Chancellor's International Scholarship); gender and disability in China's Winter Paralympic Games; and mental health literacy and help seeking behaviour of university students in South Africa.