Yanlin LU (ch. 陸衍霖) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of East Asian Studies, specializing in modern Chinese history. Among others, his research explores the dynamic interplay between the production of scientific and medical knowledge and the socio-political and ideological conditions of the time.

His dissertation, titled “The Abortive Scientific Revolution,” investigates the rise and fall of the controversial "somatic science (人體科學)" - a Chinese science of human superpowers. Emerging from the alleged discovery of ear-reading children in 1979, early experimental efforts were shaped by growing interests in Qigong, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Western parapsychological research, leading to a novel body of scientific knowledge about the human body and its hidden potentials. Despite proponents' hopes that somatic science would reveal unknown mechanisms of the body and ignite a “new scientific revolution,” it was ultimately dismissed as pseudoscience by its tireless critics by the early 2000s. The dissertation thus discusses how the proper boundaries of scientific knowledge were negotiated historically, and with what implications to our understanding of China's Reform Era and the production of scientific knowledge. 

Supported by the Donald and Mary Hyde Research Fellowship for the 2024-2025 academic year, Lu is conducting fieldwork in China and other locations to gather primary sources for his research. Outside of his academic endeavors, he is a musician and analog photographer with a deep appreciation for Dmitri Shostakovich and Gustav Mahler.