Ying Diao

Ying Diao is an ethnomusicologist and cultural anthropologist whose work centers on the intersection of sound, media, and religion, with a particular focus on music, minority, and transnational cultural production in the China–Southeast Asia borderlands. She is the author of Faith by Aurality in China’s Ethnic Borderland: Media, Mobility, and Christianity at the Margins (University of Rochester Press, 2023). She was the 2022–2023 SSRC Arts Research with Communities of Color Fellow, during which she explored artistic innovation and community engagement of Ragamala Dance Company, exploring how South Indian diaspora artists navigate the U.S. performing arts industry to make their culturally rooted art forms accessible to contemporary audiences while challenging stereotypes about tradition, creativity, and community. She holds a PhD in Ethnomusicology from the University of Maryland, an MA in Theory of Literature & Arts from Fudan University, and a BA in Chinese Language & Literature from Tsinghua University.