Dr Verna Yu

Dr Verna Yu’s research focuses on 20th century Chinese intellectuals and the history of modern and contemporary China.

She is a departmental lecturer of Modern Chinese Studies at the University of Oxford. She received her doctorate from the Department of History from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and her dissertation investigated the intellectual transformation of a group of Chinese Communist party elders who struggled in a dynamic tension between their longing for democracy and their devotion to the Communist revolution from the 1930s to the post-Mao era.

She was an award-winning journalist whose works have been published widely in the international press, primarily The Guardian and the South China Morning Post, and also in the Diplomat and New York Times among other international publications.  Her two-decade China coverage has been recognised through 10 prestigious press awards, including seven Human Rights Press Awards and three Society of Publishers in Asia Editorial Awards (SOPA) awards.

She was a Chevening scholar at the Reuters Fellowship Programme at the University of Oxford in 2004 and has a master’s degree in International and Public Affairs from the University of Hong Kong.  She was a lecturer at the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

She is the editor of the SOAS China Institute's blog.