Sharon (Yanling) Feng

Yanling (Sharon) Feng is an MA candidate in History at Stanford University. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Hong Kong with a double major in History and Comparative Literature, where she graduated with highest honors and was a recipient of the Esther Cheung Memorial Prize and the Wang Gungwu Prize for Students in History.

Sharon’s research focuses on the microhistorical stories of Chinese gender and sexual minorities, with particular interest in the history of Chinese women’s transnational migration and Chinese LGBTQ+ history. Her past research projects have examined Chinese sex workers’ trans-Pacific historical experiences in Hong Kong, Singapore, and San Francisco, as well as Chinese American women’s lives during the Jim Crow era. Her undergraduate research work has been accepted for presentation at multiple postgraduate-level conferences.

Beyond academia, Sharon has extensive experience in public service and advocacy. She has worked as a constituent liaison intern at US Congresswoman Grace Meng’s district office in Flushing, NYC, and served as a research intern at Migrasia Global Solutions Ltd., a Hong Kong-based think-and-do tank with the goal of eliminating the exploitation of migrant domestic workers. She has also contributed to LGBTQ+ archival work with Hong Kong’s Association for the Advancement of Feminism and served as a volunteer lecturer at UNDP, where she taught Sustainable Development Goals and AI-related knowledge to rural Chinese girls.

Sharon aspires to become both a gender historian and a social activist, dedicated to recovering the marginalized historical narratives of gender and sexual minorities while advocating for policy changes that protect vulnerable communities