“DKU stood out to me as a liberal arts institution in China,” said Georg May, associate professor of mathematics. “I had spent some time at a liberal arts college as part of my education and loved it. Plus, I had never been to China. So in short: It was a great opportunity.”
“I never imagined becoming a math professor until after I finished my undergraduate studies,” said Heejin Lee, assistant professor of mathematics. “It was only in graduate school that I realized I wanted to become a professor.”
“I’m very into manga and comics — or ‘graphic novels,’ to make it sound a bit less childish,” said Liuchun Deng, associate professor of economics. “I’m setting up a multi-lingual collection in my office, focusing mainly on graphic novels with connections to history and political economy.”
“Probably my greatest achievements are my kids — you may have seen them around campus — because being a mum is more than a full time job, so to do it as well as you can takes infinite amounts of time, energy and love!” said Lauren Ruth (Lola) Knowles, lecturer in English for academic purposes.
From badminton courts and graphic novels to unexpected career paths and the joys of parenthood, they reflect the diverse perspectives DKU’s newest faculty bring. Joining the university this fall as part of a wider cohort, they contribute expertise in economics, mathematics, computer science, languages and public policy — along with experiences that are already enriching the campus community. Their arrival reflects DKU’s continued growth as a global learning community. The following introductions highlight their academic backgrounds and areas of expertise.
Deng’s research focuses on technological progress, economic growth and international trade, with recent work extending into political economy. His teaching interests include intermediate macroeconomics and political economy. His work has been published in journals such as “The Journal of Economic Theory,” “European Economic Review” and “Journal of Mathematical Economics.”
Deng earned degrees in economics and statistics from Peking University and a PhD in economics from Johns Hopkins University. He has held positions at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Yale-NUS College, and the National University of Singapore. He was also an economist at Halle Institute for Economic Research in Germany and a visiting fellow at New York University Shanghai.
Epifani’s research centers on the theory and empirics of international trade, using general equilibrium models to address macroeconomic issues including migration, inequality and globalization’s welfare effects. His work has appeared in leading journals including “The Review of Economic Studies,” “The Economic Journal” and “The Journal of International Economics.”
Epifani holds a five-year degree and a master’s in economics from Bocconi University and a PhD from Marche Polytechnic University. Before DKU, he was professor of international economics at the University of Nottingham and head of school of economics at the China campus, and previously taught at Bocconi University and the University of Parma.
Krygier researches learner autonomy, with a focus on how course content and assessment can adapt to the demands of modern higher education. His teaching interests at DKU include microlearning and the phenomenon of knowledge decay between semesters. He is the author of book chapters in “Microlearning: A Case Study of a Sino-Foreign University” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) and “Knowledge Decay in Higher Education” (Cambridge Scholars, 2020) and has published in “Patterns of Practice.”
Krygier holds an MA in TESOL from the University of Leeds, a Cambridge University DELTA and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He previously taught at Liverpool John Moores University in Qatar.
Lee’s research focuses on inverse problems and spectral methods for partial differential equations, with applications in medical imaging and non-destructive testing. She has worked on the mathematical reconstruction of shapes and parameters in complex media, particularly through qualitative methods.
She earned her PhD in mathematics from Rutgers University and served as a Golomb visiting assistant professor at Purdue University before joining DKU.
Jessica Lee focuses on technology-enhanced language learning, particularly the integration of AI into education. She also studies how telecollaboration and virtual exchange can connect learners globally for intercultural communication. At DKU she teaches English for academic purposes with an emphasis on disciplinary genres and rhetorical structures.
She earned a BA in rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MA in TESOL from San Francisco State University. She previously taught at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Liu’s academic interests include Chinese language education, intercultural communication and curriculum development for international learners. She has taught students at multiple proficiency levels in Singapore, the United States and Germany, covering modern Chinese, literature and academic Chinese. She is passionate about fostering global competence through language learning and has integrated technology and project-based learning into her classes.
Before DKU, she was head of Mandarin at an international school in Singapore and served as an IGCSE oral examiner.
Miao’s research covers speech security, language and speaker recognition, and machine learning. She has co-organized major events including VoicePrivacy 2022 and 2024 and the Attacker Challenge at ICASSP 2025. Her publications include articles in “IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing,” “IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security” and “Neural Networks.”
Miao holds a BSc from North China Electric Power University and a PhD in signal and information processing from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She completed postdoctoral research at the National Institute of Informatics in Japan and later taught at the Singapore Institute of Technology.
May specializes in applied mathematics and scientific computing, developing high-order numerical methods for partial differential equations and applying them to areas such as complex fluids, high-speed flows and shape optimization. He has published widely, including in “Journal of Computational Physics” and “SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis,” and co-authored “Anisotropic hp-Mesh Adaptation Methods” (Birkhäuser, 2022).
May holds a BE from Dartmouth College, a Dipl.-Ing. from RWTH Aachen and a PhD from Stanford University.
Knowles researches language acquisition, multilingualism and identity, exploring how contexts shape multilinguals’ performance and how languages can be gained, lost and re-acquired. She has also published on educational technology and sits on the editorial board of “Patterns of Practice: An International Journal of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.”
She earned a BA from the University of Nottingham, completed the Cambridge University ESOL certificate and diploma in teaching English to adults, and holds an MA in English linguistics from Birmingham City University. She previously taught at Newcastle University, UCL, University of Nottingham Ningbo and Liverpool John Moores University in Qatar.
Wang studies environmental and health economics, analyzing how environmental regulation shapes firm behavior and affects public health. Her work has appeared in journals such as “The Review of Economics and Statistics” and “Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.”
She earned a BA in accounting from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, an MA in economics from North Carolina State University and a PhD in agricultural and applied economics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She previously worked at Carnegie Mellon University and Hunan University.
Wu researches the intersection of macroeconomics and finance, focusing on how financial frictions and aggregate dynamics interact in equilibrium. At DKU, her teaching includes macroeconomics, money and banking, and statistics.
She holds a BS in finance from Zhengzhou University, an MS in economics from Baylor University and a PhD in economics from Indiana University.
Yuechi studies the intersections of language, culture and identity, with particular attention to multilingual learners and diasporic communities. She holds an EdM in international education from Harvard Graduate School of Education. Before DKU, she taught at NYU Shanghai as a Global Writing and Speaking Fellow, served as a Fulbright English teacher in Spain and coordinated identity development research at Harvard.
Zhou focuses on education policy, sociology of education, higher education and quantitative social science. He is an expert on East Asian education systems, especially China, and has published on topics including family influences on learning, public education supply and the dynamics of Chinese universities. Zhou has translated several scholarly works into Chinese, including three books published by Beijing Normal University Press.
He earned a PhD in education policy from Michigan State University and previously taught at the University of Macau.
