Jiakai Sheng

Jiakai Sheng serves as a Lecturer in the Department of East Asian Civilizations at the University of Chicago under a Teaching Fellowship appointment for 2024-2026, with office hours held in Foster Hall during Autumn Quarter 2025. He earned his PhD in East Asia–Japan from the University of Chicago in 2024.

His academic credentials include:

• PhD in East Asia–Japan, University of Chicago (2024)

Sheng's research centers on Modern Japan and China within East Asian Transnational History, with deep specialization in the Japanese Colonial Empire, Japanese Diaspora communities, Sino-Japanese Relations, and Urban History—particularly the History of Shanghai. His work critically examines colonial administration, boundary disputes, and population movements within treaty-port contexts.

His publications demonstrate consistent focus on Shanghai's urban development during Japan's imperial era, analyzing administrative conflicts in treaty ports (2024) and postwar civilian repatriation (2020). These studies contribute significantly to Colonial History, Migration Studies, and Urban Development scholarship in East Asia through meticulous archival work on power dynamics and community resilience.

Major recognition includes:

• Buchanan Prize awarded by the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs

No details are available regarding student advising, research grants, or laboratory affiliations, though his dissertation on Japanese settlement patterns suggests ongoing engagement with historical archives and transnational research methodologies.