Yarong Chen

Dr. Yarong Chen has a BA degree in museology, an MA in art history from Peking University (China), and a PhD from Aalborg University (Denmark). Her research explores the historical relationship between UNESCO and China, with broader interests in the cultural/diplomatic history of modern China, the history of international organizations, and the history of global development. She has conducted multi-site archival research in Paris (2016, 2024), Beijing (2017, 2024), Nanjing (2017), Chongqing (2017), Taipei (2018), Cambridge (2019), and Shanghai (2024). She defended her Ph.D. dissertation on the historical relations between UNESCO and China in August 2020. From September 2021 to September 2025, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the School of International Organizations, Beijing Foreign Studies University. She has been a lecturer at the Institute of Global and Area Studies, Capital Normal University (China) since September 2025. She is also a part-time research fellow affiliated with the UNESCO Research Center, Zhejiang University (China). Her research outputs have appeared in peer-reviewed journals: Journal of International Studies [国际政治研究], International Review of Education, Intervention, Journal of World History. She has recently finished her first English monograph, China and UNESCO, 1945-1971 (Routledge, 2026), which is based on her PhD dissertation but substantially revised, extended, and enriched with more archives. Her Chinese monograph will examine the evolving roles of UNESCO within the global development framework.