Keynote Speakers

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  Dr. Wang Xudong
  Palace Museum

  Born in February 1967 in Shandan, Gansu Province, China, Dr. Wang Xudong graduated in 2002 from Lanzhou University's College of Earth and Environmental Sciences with a Ph.D. in Geological Engineering.

  Lecture date: Monday 17 May, 15:30 (UTC+8)

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  Dr. Wang joined Dunhuang Academy in June 1991, serving consecutively as the academy's Deputy Director, Executive Deputy Director and Director. He is now a member of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's CPC Leadership Team, and Director of the Palace Museum (at vice-ministerial level).

  Dr. Wang's work has focused primarily on the conservation of caves, ancient mural paintings and earthen sites, as well as research into monitoring and early warning systems and the preventive conservation of cultural heritage. Since 1991, when he began his career in heritage conservation, he has presided over sixty conservation projects at nationally protected key cultural heritage sites, undertaken nearly twenty national, provincial or ministerial-level projects, and presided over or participated in more than ten international cooperation projects with cultural heritage protection and management institutions in other countries such as the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom and Australia. He has published over 170 academic papers and six monographs as primary author, including Key Earthen Site Conservation Technology Research and Normative Research on Ancient Mural Paintings. He has also received over ten national, provincial or ministerial-level science and technology awards, as well as winning the Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation's Science and Technology Innovation Award. Dr. Wang has also obtained more than twenty technical patents, and presided over the compilation of five National and Industry Technology Standards. He has been granted many titles and awards, including 'Nationwide Outstanding Scientific and Technological Worker', 'Top Innovative Talent in the Publicity and Culture System', 'Gansu Province May 1st Labor Medal', 'Excellent Ministry of Culture Expert', 'Outstanding Gansu Province Expert', and 'Gansu Province Advanced Worker'. He has also been selected as a member of the National Hundred, Thousand and Ten Thousand Talents Project as well as Gansu Province's Leading Talents Project.

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  Prof. Dr. Zhao Feng
  China National Silk Museum

  Zhao Feng is the director of the China National Silk Museum (NSM) in Hangzhou and the president of the International Association for Study of the Silk Road Textiles (IASSRT).

  Keynote date: Wednesday 19 May, 15:00 (UTC+8)

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  During his career at the NSM since 1991, he studied the history of textiles at the China Textile University (Donghua University nowdays) in Shanghai and got his PhD in 1997. He got the fellowship and did researches at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from the Nov 1997 to Oct 1998, at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto for two months in 1999, and at the British Museum in London for half year in 2006. In 2000, he founded and became the director of the Chinese Center for Textile Identification and Conservation, which is now the Key Scientific Research Base of Textile Conservation of State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China. In 2015, he founded the IASSRT, International Association for Study of the Silk Road Textiles, and became the president. In 2019, he became the dean of the International Silk Institute, under the Zhejiang University of Sci-Tech. Since 1992, he has published more than 10 academic books and 100 research articles, including The General History of Chinese Silk, editor in chief, first National Publication Award, 2007; Chinese Silks, editor in chief for the Chinese version, the R.L Shep Ethnic Textiles Book Award for 2012; and A Comprehensive Research on Textiles from Dunhuang in UK’s collections, French and Russian collections, 2007-now.