Shellen Xiao Wu

Shellen Xiao Wu holds the L.H. Gipson Chair in Transnational History at Lehigh University, where she serves as a full Professor specializing in the historical intersections of science, environment, and global politics with a focus on modern China. Her scholarly profile bridges institutional affiliations across continents, including significant research collaborations at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.

Her academic foundation includes:

• PhD in History, Princeton University

Wu's research interrogates how scientific knowledge systems transformed Chinese approaches to natural resource governance during imperial encounters, particularly examining fossil fuel exploitation and geopolitical thought. Her seminal work Empires of Coal: Fueling China’s Entry into the Modern World Order (Stanford University Press, 2015) demonstrates how late Qing China converged with Western industrial states in resource management paradigms. Current projects analyze twentieth-century Chinese geopolitical discourse through global lenses of agricultural development, frontier settlement, and transnational idea circulation, positioning China within worldwide scientific and environmental networks.

Her methodological contributions span environmental history, history of science, and transnational frameworks, with active participation in international research collectives like the LoGaRT Working Group featured in ISIS Issue 113. Wu's scholarship reveals how Chinese scientific modernization emerged through dynamic global exchanges rather than unilateral Western imposition.