Chengrui Zhang earned his PhD from Harvard University in 2024 (Dissertation: Subsistence and Ritual: Animal Economy in the Bronze Age Qaidam Basin in Northwestern China) and then moved on to a postdoctoral position, in which he focuses on Ancient China and works closely with Dr. Rowan Flad. In fall of 2025, he will participate in a collaboration between Harvard University and the Chinese Bureau of Cultural Heritage to establish a laboratory for the study of elephant-human relationships in Ancient China. He will play a critical role in this research endeavor by organizing a workshop in Chengdu, Sichuan, China in the summer of 2025, and by creating a database that will be used by the project for the next five years.