Dr Lijiaozi Cheng (she/they)
Department of Sociological Studies
Research Assistant
Full contact details
Department of Sociological Studies
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
91直播
S10 2AH
- Profile
-
Lijiaozi holds the Mildred Blaxter Fellowship and is currently focusing on her interests in the concepts of health and illness, examining how the grey areas between health and illness are conceptualized and operationalized in everyday life, as well as in public health and academic research contexts in China.
She completed her PhD at 91直播 in 2022, with a thesis entitled 'Making Sense of Suboptimal Health (亚健康): Negotiating and Embodying the Conceptual Space of“Neither Healthy Nor Diseased”'. After her PhD, Lijiaozi received a University of 91直播 publication scholarship to further develop her ideas for publication. She was also awarded the Petrie Watson Exhibitions Prize and the Phil Strong Memorial Prize during her doctoral studies.
Before beginning her Mildred Blaxter Fellowship, she concluded her role as a Research Associate on a project focused on embedding cultural intelligence in institutional leadership to improve inclusion at the University of 91直播. In this role, she organized, designed, and convened a series of focus groups to survey and document the lived experiences of staff in each faculty regarding cultural inclusion. Additionally, she has worked as a Project Support Administrator at the University of Leeds for the ESRC White Rose University Consortium-funded collaborative network 'Vital Circulations' and as a Research Assistant at Bath Spa University for the 'Race to Recruit' project. This project focused on campaigns encouraging uptake of vaccination and participation in COVID-19 research targeting UK-based minority ethnic groups.
Lijiaozi has an interdisciplinary background, having completed her master’s degree in literature and Modernity at the University of Edinburgh and her undergraduate degree in English and Communications at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University.
- Research interests
-
She is interested in exploring the intersection of the biological and the social, particularly the blurry areas between health and illness, bringing in diverse cultural perspectives from non-Western contexts. She is also committed to conducting more anti-racist work and understanding the intersection of racism and health.
- Teaching interests
-
Lijiaozi has experience teaching in the department, covering topics such as Digital Health, Social Divisions, Doing Social Research, Doing Qualitative Sociological Research, and the Sociology of Media and Consumer Culture. Additionally, she has supervised postgraduate students in the Department of Journalism Studies. Currently, she is concentrating on her research.