Yang Han

Yang (韩阳) is a job market candidate who recently completed her DPhil in International Relations. She studied as a Swire Scholar at St Antony’s College. Yang’s research interests include hierarchies in international relations, critical security studies, and critical IR theory building through the case of China’s international relations. Her doctoral monograph, which she is currently working to turn into a book, explores China's understanding of international hierarchy through its discourses on Africa and China-Africa relations. Her works have appeared in the European Journal of International Relations and Millennium: Journal of International Studies.

Yang is an enthusiastic teacher. She currently teaches as a college lecturer in Politics and International Relations. She regularly teaches three papers: IR core, Politics in China, and International Security and Conflict. Yang is also a Research Associate at the China Centre, University of Oxford, where she co-convenes the Mandarin Forum and Oxford China Reading Group. Yang has participated in undergraduate and postgraduate admission in related disciplines, and has supervised dissertation projects for BA in Chinese Studies, on Chinese foreign policy discourses and China's FDI projects in Africa.

Yang holds an MSc degree in International Relations Research from LSE and a BA in International Politics and a BSc in Psychology from Peking University, and a PgCE in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

Since 2019, Yang has been advising the UN as a gender expert for inclusive and sustainable industrial transformation projects, having worked on 10+ global and regional GEF and IKI projects. Yang's professional expertise lies in the nexus of gender equality, social welfare, and climate action.

Research 

Yang's research interests include:

China and/in the World; Critical approaches to Hierarchies in International Relations; Critical Security Studies; Global IR theories; and International order

Teaching

• PPE 214 International Relations core; PPE 213 International Relations during the Cold War; PPE 227 Politics in China; PPE 297 International Security and Conflict

• Yang has also taught and convened undergraduate modules (Theories of International Relations; Politics of Africa, Asia, and Latin America) at Ruskin College, University of West London.

Awards

• Swire Scholarship

• Yang's research has been supported by various small grants, such as Sino-British Travel Grants, Oxford Project for Peace Studies Grant, Alastair Buchan Fund, Winchester Fund, and others

Invited Presentation

• British Academy “Chinese Global Orders: Pasts and Futures” Project Conference (2026)

• LSE-Annual Millennium Symposium (2025);

• Race and Multilateralism Workshop II, Contestations of the Liberal Script Research Program, Freie Universität Berlin (2025);

• Undergraduate Guest Lectures (Davidson College & Chinese University of Politics and Law) (2025)

• Race and Multilateralism Workshop I (2024)