Helen Fung-Har Siu is Professor of Anthropology and former Chair of East Asian Studies at Yale. A native of Hong Kong and one of Yale's most popular teachers, she has been instrumental in the growing interactivity between Yale and various institutions in Hong Kong and southern China over the past decade.

Professor Siu specializes in the culture, history and political economy of South China. Since 1974, she has done field work in the villages and market towns of the Pearl River Delta. In recent years, she has expanded her research focus to encompass the changing cultural ethos of Hong Kong. She is also deeply knowledgeable about higher education in Hong Kong: since 1992, she has served as an overseas member of the University Grants Committee, which advises the government on the funding of Hong Kong's eight higher education institutions. In 1996, she also joined the Research Grants Council, which charts the direction of academic research in the territory.

Professor Siu received her B.A. degree at Carleton College and her doctoral degree at Stanford University. Her publications on China include two edited volumes on literature — Mao's Harvest: Voices of China's New Generation (Oxford University Press, 1983) and Furrows: Peasants, Intellectuals and the State (Stanford University Press, 1990) — and one volume on history, Down to Earth: The Territorial Bond in South China, with David Faure (Stanford University Press, 1995). She has also published a monograph based on her research in Guangdong, Agents and Victims in South China: Accomplices in Rural Revolution (Yale University Press, 1989).

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