Dr Tami Xiangyi Ren
Global Academic Fellow
Biography
Xiangyi (Tami) Ren is a socio-legal scholar studying legal and policy change in Mainland China. Her research examines how legal knowledge is produced, circulated, and transformed through the interaction between court operations and lawmaking processes. Her current research examines the operation of specialized tribunals and courts, public interest litigation regimes, and how specialized judicial institutions reshape governance in China. A common intellectual thread of her work is analyzing how legal institutions mediate interactions among legal, technical, and political knowledge, as well as investigating how individuals and organizations construct, interpret, and deploy legal rules in practice.
Xiangyi received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago, an MSc in Politics of China from SOAS University of London, and a B.A. in Political Science and International Studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She was awarded the 2025 Surrency Prize by the American Society for Legal History. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Contemporary China, Law and History Review, and China Law and Society Review. Prior to joining the University of Hong Kong as a Global Academic Fellow, she served as a Social Sciences Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago.
