I received my sociology Ph.D. from the University of Virginia (2023). In August 2023, I started as Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at DePauw University (tenure-track). I currently serve as a board member of the North American Taiwan Studies Association (2024-2027) and was the Program Director for the 2022 NATSA Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Additionally, I co-founded the Ngasan Maku Study Society in Tokyo during the 2014 Sunflower Movement as a college student, fostering interdisciplinary dialogues on Taiwan globally.

I specialize in global and transnational sociology, comparative-historical sociology, and the sociology of race and empires. My specific research keywords include material culture, empires, race, and intersectionality. I am particularly interested in the relationship between material culture and systems of domination and how this relationship historically affects marginalized people. My current book project, Colors of Empire: Visualizing Race in Taiwan under Japanese Colonial Rule, studies how racial categories were constructed and deconstructed through visual representations in colonial Taiwan. 

My other works-in-progress include (1) “Contouring system” (a theory of racial hierarchies) in colonial Taiwan; (2) Self-racialization in Japan and Korea (co-authored with Dr. Veda H. Kim); (3) "Embodied supremacy" theory, studying how East Asian women's bodies manifest the power structure of global white supremacy. My research has been published in English, Mandarin, and Japanese, engaging with interdisciplinary audiences across sociology, history, and political science.

At DePauw, I teach Introduction to Sociology, Social Theory, Global and Transnational Sociology, and Sociology of Art. I am looking forward to teaching a new course Sociology of Spirituality at DePauw in 2026, and I welcome any insights and suggestions for developing this new course.

Prior to my Assistant Professorship at DePauw, as a graduate student, I TA'ed for Criminology, Intro to Sociology, and Intro to Political Science. I am committed to teaching difficult topics such as class, race, and gender from a comparative perspective.

Prior to my Ph.D. studies, I was trained in political science at National Taiwan University (Taiwan; International Relations as my undergraduate major; Comparative Politics as my graduate school major) and Waseda University (Japan; Global Political Economy as my second undergraduate major). 

• My personal website: www.yenyulintw.com 

• My ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-8443-9298