Anran Wang received his PhD in History from Cornell University in 2023, with previous degrees from Yale University, Peking University, and Waseda University. His research interests lie in the interaction between ethnonational identity and communist ideology during the Cold War era, primarily focusing on China, Northeast Asia, and Inner Asia.

At the RIH, his work focused on producing a scholarly monograph based on the revision, expansion, and consolidation of his PhD dissertation, which examines ethnopolitical development in Inner Mongolia between the end of World War II in 1945 and the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. He engaged his research with the field of Hong Kong history, which is closely relevant to the modern history of Inner Mongolia due to the two regions’ similar status as peripheries of the Chinese empire and borderlands of the Chinese nation-state.

In September 2024, Anran moved to Korea and took up a professorship at Korea University, in the College of International Studies and Graduate School of International Studies.