Yangyang Cheng is a postdoctoral research associate at Cornell University, and a member of the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Born and raised in China, Cheng received her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago in 2015, and her Bachelor’s in Science from the University of Science and Technology of China’s School for the Gifted Young. Her writings have appeared in Foreign Policy, MIT Technology Review, ChinaFile, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and other publications.
The Democratic and Republican National Conventions have just concluded. Yangyang Cheng reflects on her introduction to American politics, and shares her hopes and concerns for this election. Living in historic times, what is one's responsibility as an individual? Beneath the distorted realities, how do we reclaim the bond that is deep and intimate with this world and each other?
What is it like to watch "Hamilton" in 2020, when the romanticized version of an optimistic, inclusive America feels detached from reality? Yangyang Cheng explores what Lin-Manuel Miranda's hit musical has meant to her over the years, how the election of 2016 compelled her to repurpose her life, and the enduring power of the written word.
Whom, or what, do borders and the military protect? As COVID-19 alters the world as we know it, and governments exploit the crisis to amass power, Yangyang Cheng argues that we must rethink safety versus security, and reimagine community beyond the confines of a state.
Mo Hailong stole corn and went to jail for it. But — as documented in Mara Hvistendahl’s new book The Scientist and the Spy —...
“April is the cruelest month,” so goes the opening line to T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.” And so it is that April has been exceptionally...
Illustration by Julia YH The coronavirus is claiming many casualties: lives and livelihoods, habits and customs. What is the purpose of studying the universe when...
Illustration by Derek Zheng A state’s ability to protect is simultaneously its permission to do harm. The tyranny of the border is always imposing itself...
He Jiankui and bioethics, Chinese hospitals and patient violence, the coronavirus and lockdown of Wuhan, and politics during times of emergency. Photo: Getty Images Being ill...
How should the self struggle against forgetting? What becomes of a life after it’s gone, if not for other people’s memories of it? Yangyang Cheng...
I wonder how much my mother has been projecting our tortured relationship onto the events in Hong Kong over the past several months, waiting for...