Huiqiao Yao is originally from Beijing, China. Now She is a first-year PhD student majoring in pre-modern Chinese literature. She received her BA in Chinese language and literature from Renmin University of China, and got her Master's degree in premodern Chinese literature from Columbia University. Her MA thesis focuses on the discourse of demons and the ambiguous magical identity of Auntie Sheng in The Three Sui Quash the Demon's Revolt (三遂平妖傳). Currently, her research interest lies in the interactions between intellectual history and religious narratives in late imperial Chinese literature and culture, especially the legacy of the late-Ming philosopher Wang Yangming. In the following years, she hopes to unravel how different writers engaged this Confucian figure as a public discourse in which both the literati and the masses were able to express their political or religious views as well as articulate their self-identities. Apart from her research, she writes and translates poetry in both Chinese and English.