Ph.D. 2016 Joint Degree in Anthropology and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University
M.A. Globalization Studies, McMaster University
BA (Honors) English Literature, Simon Fraser University
Assistant Professor
Ph.D. 2016 Joint Degree in Anthropology and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University
M.A. Globalization Studies, McMaster University
BA (Honors) English Literature, Simon Fraser University
Environmental anthropology, waste, material culture, science and technology, urban studies, development, China.
My research focuses on the politics of environmental management and urbanization in contemporary China. My current book project explores how waste infrastructures, materials and their technical interventions ground and condition the forms, possibilities and limits of China’s emerging urban environmental politics. Articles based on this research are published in China Perspectives (2014) and the edited volume Fueling Culture (2017). My research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (Canada). Prior to joining NYU, I was the An Wang Postdoctoral fellow in Environmental Humanities at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University.
2022 The Golden Dozen Teaching Award (NYU)
2022 The Goddard Junior Faculty Fellowship (NYU)
2021 Wenner-Gren "Collaborative Ecologies" Mini-Grant
2021 NYU Climate Change Initiative: Climate Research Seed Grant
2021 NYU FAS First Book Workshop Program
2020 Junior Scholar Award Anthropology & Environment Society American Anthropological Association
2016 Roy Rappaport Prize: Best Student Paper Anthropology & Environment Society American Anthropological Association
2014 - 2016 Yale University East Asian Studies Prize Fellowship for Dissertation Writing
2012 - 2013 Social Science Research Council (SSRC) – International Dissertation Research Fellowship
2012 - 2013 National Science Foundation (NSF) – Cultural Anthropology and Science, Technology and Society Programs Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant
2012 - 2013 Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Dissertation Fieldwork Grant
2012 - 2013 Wenner-Gren Foundation Osmundsen Initiative, Dissertation Fieldwork Grant
2009 - 2013 Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) – Doctoral Fellowship
Forthcoming. Duempelmann, S., S. Pauleit, K. Wright, R.Gioielli, A.Sinha, and A. Zhang. "Making Urban Environments: Infrastructures of power, resistance and negotiation" Special Issue: Global Environment
2021 Zhang, Amy. "From Immunity to Collaboration: Microbes, Waste and Anti-Toxic Politics." Current Anthropology 62(S24): Special Issue "Cultures of Fermentation" https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/715542
2020 "Circularity and Enclosures: Metabolising Waste with the Black Soldier Fly." Cultural Anthropology 35(1):74–103. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca35.1.08
2020 "The Black Soldier Fly: An indigenous innovation for waste management in Guangzhou." in Can Science and Technology Save China? Edited by Greenhalgh, Susan and Zhang, Li. Cornell University Press, 163-183.
2019 "Invisible Labouring Bodies:Waste work as infrastructure in China." Made in China Journal. Under Construction: Visions of Chinese Infrastructure. Vol 4. Issue 2. Apr-Jun. 98-102. https://madeinchinajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Made-in-China-02-2019.pdf
2018"(Eco)Enzyme as catalyst" in the series "The Naturalization of Work." Theorizing the Contemporary. Cultural Anthropology. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/1506-eco-enzyme-as-catalyst
2016 Hebdon C., M. Lennon, F. Ludlow, A. Zhang and M.R. Dove. "Pedagogies of Climate Change" in Anthropology and Climate Change: From Actions to Transformations . 2nd Edition. Ed. Susan A. Crate and Mark Nuttall. Routledge, 388-398.
2015 Claus, A., S. Osterhoudt, L. Baker, L. Cortesi, C. Hebdon, A. Zhang and M. Dove. "Disaster, Degradation, Dystopia: Political Ecologies & Epistemologies of Disasters." Handbook of Political Ecology, R. Bryant and S. Kim, eds. Edward Elgar Publishing, 291-304.
2014"Rational Resistance: Homeowner contentions against waste incineration in Guangzhou." Special feature: Contested Urban Spaces: Whose right to the city? China Perspectives2014(2): 45-52. https://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/6458
Updated July 2017
In the upcoming year, in addition to preparing my book manuscript and articles, I will be working on a project to examine the ecology of the scraps sector in southern China. In addition, I will conduct a collaborative project with visual artists and other scholars on a scrap yard in Philadelphia.