Jason Chan’s research revolves around the history of cryospheric sciences in the People’s Republic of China, with the aim to center the “Third Pole” origin of Chinese polar sciences and trans-polar scientific networks.
His first line of inquiry traces the development of permafrost science in the People’s Republic of China through the global history of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. Threaded with the railway’s construction between 1954 and 2006, this project tracks the circulation of permafrost engineering knowledge across Manchuria (Manchukuo and socialist Northeast China), Soviet Siberia, post-war Hokkaido, oil-boom Alaska, Cold War subarctic Canada, home-ruled Greenland, the (post-)Soviet Arctic, and the Tibetan Plateau. In so doing, it situates the development of Chinese permafrost science in the global history of infrastructure developments across high-altitude and high-latitude (or polar) environments.
His second line of inquiry focuses on the development of glaciology in modern China through the concept of glacial periods, or glaciation (冰期). Beginning with local uses of glacial meltwater in late imperial arid China and Republican-era studies of Quaternary glaciation, this project anchors the history of Chinese glaciology in both regional and global concerns for water security in the current epoch of glacial retreat.
Jason’s research has generously been supported by the Esherick-Ye Foundation, Victor and William Fung Foundation, Harvard Committee on General Scholarships, Harvard University Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, and Harvard University Asia Center.