Directors & Other Staff
Professor Mark Wang
Director
Mark Wang is Director of the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies and Professor in the School of Geography at the University of Melbourne. He was awarded a Bachelor of Science at Shanxi Normal University in 1982 and Master of Science at Northeast Institute of Geography and Agro-Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1985. In 1995 he gained his PhD from the University of British Columbia. Mark has been with the University of Melbourne since 1996. His recent research concerns China’s land acquisition, resettlement/displacement, migration, and water management.
Dr Qiuping Pan
Deputy Director
Qiuping Pan is a Lecturer at the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies. Her research explores intercultural encounters, community development, civics, and citizenship in migration contexts. She is currently examining how transnational mobilities between Australia and China shape processes of self-formation, entrepreneurship, and grassroots mobilisation among migrant and student communities. She is the author of Transnational Ties, Local Lives Translocal Dynamics of Chinese Diaspora and Community Re-organisation (Routledge, 2025). Her work has been published in Journal of Migration and Ethnic Studies, Citizenship Studies, and Current Sociology.
Dr Ivan Franceschini
Deputy Director
Ivan Franceschini is a Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies. His current research explores the intersections of globalisation, labour, and the evolving dynamics of crime in the digital age, with a particular focus on the cyber-fraud industry. His latest books include Scam: Inside Southeast Asia’s Cybercrime Compounds (Verso, 2025), Global China as Method (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Proletarian China (Verso, 2022), Xinjiang Year Zero (ANU Press, 2022), and Afterlives of Chinese Communism (ANU Press and Verso, 2019). He also co-directed two award-winning documentaries, Dreamwork China (2011) and Boramey: Ghosts in the Factory (2021). He is the founder and co-editor in chief of the open access publications Made in China Journal, The People’s Map of Global China, and Global China Pulse.
Dr Sarah Rogers
Associate Professor
Sarah Rogers is a geographer whose research focuses on environmental, social, and political change in rural China and beyond. Her current, collaborative research projects focus on China's agrochemical complex, China's engagements in Indonesia, and the impacts of China's net zero transition on rural communities. Sarah has held two Australian Research Council Discovery Projects and three Ford Foundation grants and her work has been published in Nature, Progress in Human Geography, World Development, Dialogues in Human Geography, and Global Environmental Change.
Dr Anthony J. Spires
Associate Professor
Anthony J. Spires, a sociologist, is a former Deputy Director of CCCS and current Deputy Associate Dean International (China) for the Faculty of Arts. Before joining Melbourne in 2018, he was Director of the Centre for Social Innovation Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on the development of civil society in China, including philanthropy, governmental regulation, and the cultures of non-profit organisations. His research has appeared in The China Journal, China Quarterly, and The American Journal of Sociology. He is the author of Global Civil Society and China (Cambridge University Press, 2024) and Everyday Democracy: Civil Society, Youth, and the Struggle against Authoritarian Culture in China (Columbia University Press, 2024). A graduate of Occidental College, Anthony holds three masters degrees and a PhD in Sociology from Yale University.
Dr Trissia Wijaya
McKenzie Research Fellow
Trissia Wijaya is a McKenzie Research Fellow at the Asia Institute. She is the author of The Political Economy of Japanese and Chinese Infrastructure Financing Governance: Organizing Alliances, Institutions, and Ideology (Bristol University Press, forthcoming). She enrolled in a PhD in Politics at Murdoch University and subsequently worked at the Asian Development Bank, the UNDP Indonesia, and Ritsumeikan University. Her current research focuses sit at the intersection of geopolitical economy and responses to it in East Asia, encompassing green infrastructure financing, industrial policy, and critical mineral development. She was awarded the 2023 Herb Feith Centre Fellow from Monash University and the 2024-2025 Australian National University Indonesia Project Visiting Fellowship. Trissia is an ECR Representative of the Asia Institute and serves as a member of the Environmental Politics and Policy Research executive committee of Australian Political Studies Association.
Dr Lajia
McKenzie Research Fellow
Lajiadou (Lajia) joined the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies (CCCS) as a postdoctoral fellow in 2023. He is a McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow with research interests in the social, cultural, and political dimensions of diversity and inclusion within education. His work aims to inform the public and promote educational equity and justice for marginalised groups, with a particular focus on racial and ethnic minorities and Indigenous populations in public education systems. At CCCS, Lajia is working on research related to the integration and international dynamics of bi/multilingual and multicultural education, as well as global education politics and policies, and how they are locally implemented in the context of the global South. His research has been published in academic journals such as the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Melbourne Asia Review, and Discourse – Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.
Dong Wang
Research Fellow - Ford Grant
Jessica Rockwell
Project Coordinator
Jessica Rockwell joined the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies as Project Coordinator in March 2024. With a background in Economics and International Relations, she enjoys learning about contemporary China and its ongoing transformations. Her interest in China led to her teaching at Jiangnan University in Jiangsu Province and working for Wuxi Daily. She continues to study Mandarin and enjoys watching Chinese movies.