Linjun Xie earned her MSc with distinction from Cardiff University in 2016. Her master’s thesis evaluated the safety principles of the TfL’s Cycling Level of Service assessment tool from a gender perspective. She joined the doctoral program at the University of Nottingham Ningbo with a full scholarship in September 2016, working on an international collaborative project entitled “Smart Eco-cities for a Green Economy.” This three-year research program aims to provide the first systematic comparative analysis of smart city and eco-city initiatives in China and Europe.
Linjun’s research interests include political ecology of urban and rural studies, critical eco smart urbanism, and politics of sustainable development. Her PhD project is focused on a political ecology study of Chinese ecological developments, with a case study of the Chongming Islands in Shanghai, China. Linjun is currently a visiting researcher at the Rachel Carson Center under the scheme of Green Talents 2017, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).