My interest in Chinese Philosophy was first kindled in my undergraduate years at the University of Toronto, where I received my Bachelor’s degree as a specialist in East Asian Studies with a major in Philosophy. I then spent a year studying Chinese language and philosophy at the Mandarin Training Center in Taipei before entering the Master’s degree program in Comparative Philosophy at the University of Hawaii. In 1993 I entered the Ph.D. program in East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, where I worked closely with Professors Tu Wei-ming, Michael Puett, Helen Hardacre and Peter Bol, as well as with two of the most respected scholars of Daoism, Livia Kohn (Boston University) and Harold Roth (Brown University). Under their guidance, I broadened my understanding of the historical context in which East Asian thought developed and deepened my perspective on the evolution of Daoism, my primary area of research. I received my doctorate degree from Harvard in March of 2002.

My doctoral dissertation, “Chuang Tzu: The Evolution of a Taoist Classic,” presented an interdisciplinary perspective on the composition of the Zhuangzi, one of the most important texts in the East Asian intellectual tradition. More generally, my research is concerned with various aspects of East Asian thought, especially early Chinese philosophy, Neo-Confucianism, and Japanese religion. In this regard, I have done extensive research on a number of important topics, such as the harmonious relationship between different traditions of philosophy and religion in both China and Japan, Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming as the catalyst of the Four-Seven Debate, and religious pilgrimage in contemporary Japan. More recently, I have been exploring the use of role-playing games in the classroom; I have thus far incorporated five games into my courses, two of which I authored (“King Zheng's Great Debate and the Unification of China” and “Tension in the Taiwan Strait”).

I’m extremely passionate about teaching and hope to inspire in my students a lifelong interest in all things East Asian — past, present and future.