JM Chris Chang

JM Chris Chang is a Special Projects Researcher for International Programs. He is a historian of modern China whose research focuses on issues of bureaucracy, archive, and surveillance in the 20^th century. His study of Maoist dossiers—the socialist system of personalized files on Chinese citizens—utilizes a wide range of unconventional and discarded archival sources, which informs a broader interest in file-systems and the afterlives of government paper. Prior to joining the ACLS, he was a Mellon Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Columbia University and taught courses on Chinese history and the global history of surveillance. Most recently, he led the Humanities in Practice and Asia in Action initiatives at Columbia, supporting researchers and practitioners in applying public humanities methods and perspectives to broader issues of social concern. He holds a PhD in East Asian History from Columbia.