School of Humanities and Sciences


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  • Yahui He

    Yahui He

    Ph.D. Student in Chinese, admitted Autumn 2017

    BioYahui He is a PhD candidate in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, specializing in Chinese archaeology. Her research interests include human-plant relationship, food production and consumption, and their discourses in the environmental and social dimensions of prehistoric China. Yahui's dissertation focuses on the interactions between long-term practices of plant-based food and drink, environmental shifts, and sociopolitical structures in the northern borderland region of China (today’s northern Shaanxi and south-central Inner Mongolia) during the Neolithic period. The research methodology primarily includes microfossil (starch, phytolith, and fungi ) and usewear analysis. In addition, she has been engaged in collaborative projects from other regions in mainland China and beyond (Erlitou, Taiwan, Honduras, etc.) and a series of experimental studies.

  • Elise Huerta

    Elise Huerta

    Ph.D. Student in Chinese, admitted Autumn 2015
    Ph.D. Minor, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

    BioElise Huerta is a PhD candidate in East Asian Languages and Cultures with a concentration in modern Chinese literature and a minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her dissertation, Untouchable: On the Cultural Politics of Hands in Modern China, aims to produce new understandings of intimacy, alienation, labor, and violence in the modern era through the interdisciplinary study of tactile culture. The project explores the many powers invested in human hands through narrative, taking a particular interest in the discourses and social mechanisms that contribute to the construction of "untouchable" people and groups. Her research will be supported by a Mellon Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in 2021-2022 and an AAUW American Fellowship in 2022-2023.

    As an educator, Huerta is committed to supporting student success while promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education. She currently serves as a graduate mentor through the First-Generation and/or Low-Income (FLI) and Enhancing Diversity in Education (EDGE) programs at Stanford. She is a published Chinese to English translator and holds a BA in Chinese with a minor in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.