Xia Mingfang, director of the Center for Ecological History is professor at the Institute for Qing Historz (IQH) at RUC. He is also deputy director of the IQH and editor-in chief of Studies in Qing History and vice chairman of the advisory board of the Association of Chinese Agricultural History. His main research fields are history of disasters and famine, environmental history, and history of social economy of Modern China. As a member of the research team on "Disasters and Famine in Modern China" at RUC, he participated in writing of TheSequel to the Chronological Record of Disasters and Famine in Modern China, and TheTop Ten Disasters in Modern China. He is also author of Natural Disasters and Rural Society in the Republic of China, and The Bumpy Path toward the Modern Era: The Process of Chinese Modernization in Ecological Transformations. He co-edits the book series “Ecology and People,” that publishes translations of environmental history. His most recent work is an edited issue on ecological history in the annually published journal of New History.