Xuefei Ren is associate professor of sociology and global urban studies at Michigan State University. Her work focuses on urban development, governance, inequality, and the built environment in global perspective. She is the author of three award-winning books: Governing the Urban in China and India: Land Grabs, Slum Clearance, and the War on Air Pollution (Princeton, 2020), Urban China (Polity, 2013), and Building Globalization: Transnational Architecture Production in Urban China (University of Chicago Press, 2011).
She is currently working on two comparative projects, on Chinese cities’ responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, and on culture-led revitalization efforts in rust-belt China. She has been a co-editor of Journal of Urban Affairs, City & Community, and on the editorial board of International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
Her research has been supported by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies. She received her M.A. in urban planning from Tokyo Metropolitan University and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago.