Abigail Coplin is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Science, Technology, and Society at Vassar College. Her research analyzes the development of China’s biotechnology and agrobiotechnology industries to unpack how scientific innovation, business, and regime legitimacy co-evolve in the contemporary People’s Republic of China, how the Chinese state contends with scientific experts and incorporates expertise in its governance schemes, and how China’s pursuit of high-tech development is restructuring relationships among Chinese society, industry, and the party-state. She is currently completing a book manuscript entitled Domesticating Biotechnological Innovation: Science, Market, and the State in Post-Socialist China and a second project unpacking the sociopolitical mechanisms underpinning China’s model of biological data capitalism.
Coplin holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University, an M.A. in Regional Studies of East Asia from Harvard University, and a B.S. in Chemistry and East Asian studies from Yale University. She is currently a fellow in the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations’ Public Intellectuals Program, and has also previously held fellowships with the University of Pennsylvania Center for the Study of Contemporary China, the Yale Council on East Asian Studies, and the Fulbright Association.
