ResumeCao Kang ('Kang Cao' in English publication) is a Professor and PhD supervisor in the Department of Landscape Planning and Design, School of Art Design and Media, East China University of Science and Technology. To date, she has published over 80 papers in domestic and international journals. She has authored 3 monographs, translated 4 books, and edited 2 textbooks. She has led 3 projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, 2 projects under the Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Sciences Research Fund, 2 projects from the Zhejiang Provincial Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Program, and 1 provincial teaching reform research project. She has received 3 provincial/ministerial-level scientific research achievement awards (as first author), 2 outstanding teaching paper awards, and 2 provincial first-class courses. She was selected as one of the first batch of Zhijiang Young Social Science Scholars in Zhejiang Province, and as a candidate for the third level of the Zhejiang Provincial 151 Talents Project. She serves on the editorial boards of Planning Theory (SSCI Q1) and Planning Theory and Practice (SSCI), and is a peer reviewer for several SCI, SSCI, and CSSCI journals. She is a committee member and Deputy Secretary-General of the Planning History and Theory Branch of the Urban Planning Society of China, a youth committee member of the International Urban Planning Branch of the Urban Planning Society of China (2020–2025), a council member of the Zhejiang Geographical Society and Deputy Director of its Human Geography Committee (2011–2026), and a member of the Talent and Youth Professionals Committee of the Zhejiang Territorial Spatial Planning Society (2022–2026). She has been a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania (USA), TU Dortmund University (Germany), the University of Manchester (UK), King's College London (UK), the École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Paris-La Villette (France), RMIT University (Australia), Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University (Turkey), Tamkang University (Taiwan, China), and Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia). ResearchKang Cao's research primarily focuses on planning theory, planning history, and planning knowledge flow.
In terms of planning theory, she particularly focuses on the philosophical traditions and evolutionary mechanisms of planning theory. She adopts interdisciplinary approaches, drawing insights from physics—especially string theory—to rethink the evolution of planning theory. In her monograph String of Theories: An Odyssey of the Modern European and American Urban Planning Theory (2025), she draws an analogy between physical theory and planning theory, using concepts such as strings and ten-dimensional space to dissect key moments in the evolution of modern Western planning thought. She also engages with evolutionary biology to examine how planning theories emerge, adapt, and transform over time. She has explored how the concepts of space and time, reshaped by modern sciences such as geometry, physics, and astronomy, have fundamentally altered our understanding of urban space. A distinctive thread in her work is the exploration of contemporary planning theory through the lens of Chinese traditional philosophy. She has examined the potential of Huang-Lao thought—an ancient Chinese philosophical tradition originating in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods and flourishing during the Han dynasty—to inform contemporary spatial planning in China. She argues that Huang-Lao, as a disjunctive synthesis of Confucianism, Legalism, and Daoism, offers a rewarding approach for grounding spatial planning theory and practice in China within a natural order of being. This line of inquiry reflects her broader commitment to constructing planning theory that is not merely imported from the West but rooted in indigenous intellectual traditions. Her theoretical contributions are recognized by her service on the editorial boards of Planning Theory (SSCI Q1) and Planning Theory and Practice (SSCI).
Another major strand of her research concerns the flow and diffusion of planning knowledge. She investigates how planning ideas, practices, and institutions travel across borders—how they are transferred, adapted, localized, and received in different contexts. She has examined China’s overseas urban and rural planning engagements since the 1990s from the perspective of planning knowledge flow, analyzing the mechanisms through which planning knowledge is produced, circulated, and localized. She is also interested in how national innovation factors affect planning knowledge flows, and has explored the transnational diffusion, interpretation, and reception of collaborative planning in China. She is a youth committee member of the International Urban Planning Branch of the Urban Planning Society of China (2020–2025), which aligns with her focus on international knowledge transfer.
From a global historical perspective, she studies the evolution of urban planning across different countries and civilizations, tracing how planning institutions, ideas, and practices have been shaped by cross-regional civilizational interactions. Her work in comparative planning history examines the development of urban planning systems in diverse cultural contexts, with a particular focus on how planning knowledge and practices travel across civilizational boundaries. She is a committee member and Deputy Secretary-General of the Planning History and Theory Branch of the Urban Planning Society of China, and has been a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, TU Dortmund University, the University of Manchester, King’s College London, the École nationale supérieure d’architecture de Paris-La Villette, RMIT University, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Tamkang University, and Addis Ababa University.
She is the author of five books and more than 80 journal articles, and serves as a peer reviewer for multiple SCI, SSCI, and CSSCI journals. Publications
|
