Guolong Lai, Associate Professor of Chinese Art and Archaeology, earned his MA in Archaeology and Paleography at Beijing University (1994), and PhD in Art History at the University of California, Los Angeles (2002). He has worked at the National Museum of Chinese History in Beijing, the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, received a Pre-doctoral Fellowship from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC and Postdoctoral Fellowships in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at Columbia University and at Stanford University.

His research interests include all aspects of the visual and material cultures in early China, and has published articles on such topics as the Mawangdui silk diagrams, religious significance of lamps in early Chinese tombs, linguistic and paleographic issues in manuscript studies, origins of Chinese writing system, archaeology of death and burial, early Chinese religion, Chinese bronze art, heritage conservation and architectural imitation in modern China.

He has co-organized two international symposiums: “Collectors, Collections and Collecting Arts of China: Histories and Challenges,” sponsored by the Harn Eminent Scholar Chair in Art History Program, School of Art and Art History, University of Florida, February 20-21, 2009; and “The Persistence of Traditions: Monuments and Preservation in Late Imperial and Modern China,” sponsored by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the Getty Conservation Institute, the Society of Fellows in the Humanitiesat Columbia University, April 2-3, 2004.

His next research project Manuscript Culture in Western Han Local Courts: An Archaeological Study is supported by the Henry Luce Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies Grant in East and Southeast Asian Archaeology and Early History (2011).