Dr. Zhao is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the Education University of Hong Kong. She received a bachelor’s degree from Beijing Normal University and a PhD from the University of Hong Kong. Prior to joining the Education University of Hong Kong in 2008, she taught at the School of Education, Beijing Normal University.

Dr. Zhao is interested in researching curriculum innovation and educational change from a citizenship perspective. She has won research grants from the Beijing Municipal Education Commission, the UNICEF, and the General Research Fund (GRF) of the Research Grants Council (RGC) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. She is currently a co-investigator in a most recent research project funded by the Hong Kong SAR Government’s Policy and Innovation Coordination Office (PICO), Working in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area: Hong Kong Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Undergraduates’ Intention and Concerns. 

Dr. Zhao is an editor of Cogent Education and a member of the International Advisory Board of the British Journal of Religious Education. She also serves on the editorial boards of Gender and Education and Chinese Education and Society.

Dr. Zhao is guest editor for a special issue of Social Transformations in Chinese Societies (2023), entitled Beyond the state reach: Education and citizen-making in China (with Canglong Wang). She also won the Special Issue Competition of Citizenship Studies in 2022 and was invited to guest edit another special issue, Reconsidering Chinese Citizenship: Cultural Roots and Cultural Reach (with Zhonghua Guo and Canglong Wang).

• Citizenship and diversity in the curriculum
• Gender studies
• Sociology of education

Curriculum studies;

Moral and citizenship education;

Education and social development

Editorial Board Member, Gender and Education (2018-present)

Editorial Board Member, Chinese Education and Society (2021-present)

International Advisory Board Member: British Journal of Religious Education (2021-present)

Editor, Cogent Education (2020-present)

Guest Editor, Citizenship Studies, the special issue of 'Reconsidering Chinese Citizenship: Cultural Roots and Cultural Reach' (With Zhonghuaguo and Canglong Wang, forthcoming)

Guest Editor, Social Transformations in Chinese Societies, the special issue of 'Beyond the state reach: Education and citizen-making in China' (with Canglong Wang, forthcoming).

Guest Editor, Chinese Education and Society, the special issue of 'A Cultural Perspective on China’s Citizenship' (with Chia Yeow-Tong, 2020), 53(1-2).

Guest Editor, Chinese Education and Society, the special issue of 'China’s Ethnic Dilemma: Ethnic Minority Education' (2010), 43(1).

Council Member, Hong Kong Sociological Association (2020-2022)

Committee Member, the Asia-Pacific Network for Moral Education (APNME) (2008-2011, 2014-2017)

Associate Member, China Studies Centre, The University of Sydney (2019-present)

Member, Chinese Association of Hong Kong & Macao Studies (2022-present)

Honorary Research Associate, the Wah Ching Centre of Research on Education in China, University of Hong Kong (2011-2013)