I am a historian of colonial port cities in twentieth-century Asia. I am most interested in issues such as diapsoric interactions, identity politics, cosmopolitanism, and colonial practices in the region.

Building on my earlier research on Hong Kong's transnational connections, I have embarked on a new project that examines the ways in which such connections complicated colonial pratices. This project studies the management of transnational destitute British subjects in four Asian port cities: Hong Kong, Manila, Shanghai, and Singapore. I am interested in understanding how local authorities, the British state, urban Asian's growing civil society, and other political regimes in the Asia-Pacifc region interacted with each other to govern and assist individuals with a British status who were mobile and impoverished, making them 'problematic' in the eyes of many. This project will explain how decisions were made when colonial governance involved international networks and institutions, and how a middle-class civil society affected colonial practices in twentieth-century Asia. 

I am preparing a book manuscript based on my doctoral thesis about 'multiracial Britons' in Hong Kong, exploring how British colonialism affected the development of national, civic, urban, and diasporic identities there. 

An integral part of my work is public engagement. I work closely with the University's Hong Kong History Project. I am also the founder and administrator of the Hong Kong History Postgrads/ECRs Network.