She received her DPhil in History and MPhil in Russian and East European Studies, both from Oxford University, where she was a Clarendon scholar. Prior to embarking on a postgraduate career, she was a journalist at the Political Desk of The Straits Times. Her research interests include nationalism, migration, diaspora studies, Northeast Asian regional history and Sino-Russian relations. Current projects include a history of the Amur River conflict, Chinese civil society organisations in the Russian Far East and Russian refugees in Manchuria.