Yang Li

Yang Li is a scientist-turned-historian currently holding the Anna Julia Cooper Postdoctoral Fellowship (2024–25) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In Fall 2025, they will transition to an assistant professor role jointly appointed in the Department of History and the Integrated Liberal Studies Program. Their research bridges the history of science, medicine, and technology with political economy, focusing on modern China's transformations through biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

• Education:
• Ph.D., M.A., Princeton University
• M.S., University of California, Riverside
• B.S., Peking University

Li's scholarship introduces the concept of 'Scientific Capital,' linking Bourdieu's theory of capital with Marxist analysis to examine state-controlled science under socialism. Their first book project, Biopolitical Socialism: Antibiosis, Scientific Capital, and China’s Cold War Rationality, 1949–90, explores China's pharmaceutical industry development and its global impact. A second project, Anxious Waves, Intimate Resonance, analyzes ultrasound technology under the One Child Policy (1979–2015), addressing surveillance, reproductive rights, and moral economies.

Li is also building a digital archive of Chinese pharmaceutical factories, mapping Cold War-era biotech dynamics. Their teaching will focus on global histories of science and medicine, with a regional emphasis on East Asia.

Scientific Awards

• Anna Julia Cooper Postdoctoral Fellowship (2024–25)