Dr Hajni Elias

Dr Hajni Elias is an Affiliated Lecturer with the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge.

Hajni Elias obtained her BA Degree in East Asian Studies from Princeton University, and her MA and MPhil Degrees in Modern Chinese History from Columbia University, USA. In 2001, she joined the auction house Sotheby’s as Senior International Researcher for Chinese Works of Art Departments worldwide. During her years at Sotheby’s she co-authored a comprehensive publication on Chinese art collections held privately and in museums worldwide and on the history of the Chinese art market in the 20th and 21st centuries. After 13 years of working with Chinese artefacts, in 2013 she began her PhD at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, under the supervision of Prof. Roel Sterckx. Her Ph.D. dissertation, titled “The Southwest: A Study of Regional Identity in Material Culture and Textual Sources during the Eastern Han Dynasty” was submitted in 2018. Between 2019-2023, Hajni continued her research on the subject of art and cultural transmission along the Southwest Silk Road in early Imperial China as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at FAMES, Cambridge. In her current role as Affiliated Lecturer she teaches a course on Chinese art and material culture which is offered jointly with the History of Art Department at the University of Cambridge.