Professor HE received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and conducted her postdoctoral research at Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. Her first book Tiananmen Exiles: Voices of the Struggle for Democracy in China was named one of the Top Five China Books of 2014 by the Asia Society’s China File. The book has been reviewed in the New York Review of Books, the Christian Science Monitor, the Human Rights Quarterly, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph, the New Statesman, the Spectator, the Journal of East Asian Libraries, the China Journal, and other international periodicals and newspapers.  

Before joining CUHK, she has taught at Harvard University, Wellesley College, and Saint Michael’s College. The seminars that she created on the 1989 Tiananmen Movement and its aftermath earned her the Harvard University Certificate of Teaching Excellence for three years. She has been selected to be a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (2018-19) and is a current research associate of Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.

Professor HE publishes and speaks widely outside the academy. She was designated among the Top 100 Chinese Public Intellectuals of 2016. Her op-eds have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Nation, the Guardian, and the Globe and Mail. She has been a keynote speaker for the Canada Human Rights National Symposium, testified at a U.S. Congressional hearing, and delivered lectures for the U.S. State Department and the Canada International Council. She has been interviewed by the ABC (Australia), AI Jazeera, Associated Press, BBC, Boston Globe, Boston Public Radio, CBC, Christian Science Monitor, CTV, Daily Telegraph, Globe and Mail, Guardian, Harvard Gazette, Harvard Magazine, Los Angeles Times, NPR, National Geographic, NBC, the New York Times, Public Radio International, Radio Free Asia, Radio Canada International, Time, Voice of America, Wellesley News, and various other international media. Her profile interview with the New York Times Chinese edition was ranked the Top 3 Most Popular Original Articles of 2016.

• Modern and contemporary Chinese history, society, and politics;
• Interdisciplinary inquiries into the nexus of history, memory, and power, political socialization, youth values, and social change, and their implications for citizenship, identity, human rights, and democracy;
• The 1989 Tiananmen Movement and its aftermath;
• Intellectual freedom and censorship;
• Patriotic education and post-89 student nationalism;
• Oral history and life history

Selected Interviews on Research and Teaching

• 燃點燭光 繼續書寫歷史。Ming Pao 明報(星期日副刊), June 7, 2020.
• “Teaching Tiananmen to a Younger Generation.” New York Times, June 21, 2016.
• “在美國上六四課，中國學生心態各異”。紐約時報中文版 New York Times Chinese, Part I June 6, Part II June 7, 2016.
• 六四歷史、記憶與教育 with 也斯[June 4th History, Memory and Education]. Ming Pao 明報(星期日副刊), June 12, 2011.
• Radio Free Asia : 六四三十周年：面對歷史，才有未來

Selected Publications

• “Patriotic Education in post-Tiananmen China.” In The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. Ed. David Ludden. New York: Oxford University Press (forthcoming).
• “Striking a Rock with Eggs: Resistance and Repression ‘with Chinese Characteristics.” a book chapter in an edited volume in collaboration with fellow members of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton (forthcoming).
• “The 1989 Tiananmen Movement and its Aftermath.” In The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. Ed. David Ludden. New York: Oxford University Press. December 2017.
• “Identifying with a Rising China: Overseas Chinese Student Nationalism,” in Constructing Modern Asian Citizenship. Eds. Kumar and Vickers. UK: Routledge, 2015, pp. 314-340.
• Tiananmen Exiles: Voices of the Struggle for Democracy in China. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, April 2014, simultaneously in hardcover and paperback, Oral History Series.
• “Curriculum in Exile: Teaching Tiananmen at Harvard.” Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue: The Journal for the American Association for Teaching and Curriculum, Volume 14, Numbers 1 & 2, 2011-2012, pp.53-66.

Published Op-Eds

• “China continues to deny Tiananmen, but we won’t let the world forget.” Guardian, June 4, 2019.
• “Surviving Tiananmen: The Price of Dissent in China.” The Nation, June 4, 2019.
• “False Identity? Forced Identity?: Taiwan in China’s Post-Tiananmen Nationalism.” Taiwan Insight, University of Nottingham, June issue, 2019.
• “Remembering the Unknown Fallen of 1989 China.” Online Journal of the Institute for Political Research, Italy, June 4, 2019.
• “Never Forget, Never Give up: The Tiananmen Movement, 30 years later.” The Globe and Mail, April 19, 2019.
• “The Open Wound of Tiananmen.” Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2015.
• “The Fight for Democracy is not just a Challenge for People in Hong Kong.” Guardian, September 29 2014.
• “Tiananmen: A War of Memory against Forgetting.” Globe and Mail. Op-ed page, June 3, 2014.
• “Still Seeking Justice for the Tiananmen Massacre.” Washington Post. Op-ed page, June 5, 2012. Reprinted by Japan Times.
• “Reading Havel in Beijing.” Wall Street Journal, p. 10, December 30, 2011.

• Member, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 2018-2019
• Designated among Top 100 Chinese Public Intellectuals of 2016
• Tiananmen Exiles named Top Five China Book of 2014, Asia Society China File
• Harvard University Provost Fund for Arts and Humanities, 2013
• Harvard University Elson Family Arts Initiative Fund for Humanities Teaching, 2013
• Harvard Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Grant, 2013
• Harvard University Certificate of Teaching Excellence, 2011, 2012, 2013
• Postdoctoral Fellowship, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2008-2010
• Doctoral Fellowship, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2005-2007
• Academic Excellence Award, University of Toronto, 2005, 2006, 2007
• Ontario Graduate Scholarship, Canada, 2005-2007