Bio
Prior to joining the Faculty of Law at the University of Otago, Dr Song taught at the University of the South Pacific in Vanuatu. She has held research or visiting positions at Harvard University, Oxford University, University of Michigan, the East-West Center (Honolulu), Melbourne University, the Australian National University, Chiang Mai University, the Humanities Institute (Myanmar), and Northwestern University (US). Before entering academia, she worked as a lawyer at an international law firm and then as an in-house counsel at an international commercial bank, both in Shanghai, China. In 2012, she completed an internship with the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs in New York.
Dr Song serves as editor of the Otago Law Review, and is or has been on the editorial board of the International Journal of Refugee Law, the Journal of South Pacific Law, Climate Law and Policy and the New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies and the advisory board of RefLaw.org (an e-journal launched by the Michigan Law School). She is a member of the Centre for Global Migrations (University of Otago) and the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network and was secretary of the New Zealand Asian Studies Society. She also serves as a member of the academic committee of New Zealand Asian Lawyers and regularly provides Country of Origin Information (COI) expert reports to asylum courts and tribunals.
Dr Song's primary research and teaching areas are refugee law and migration law. She also publishes on Chinese and Pacific legal issues. She has gratefully received research fellowships/awards from institutions in New Zealand, Australia, Vanuatu, the US, China, and South Korea, including a Michael and Suzanne Borrin Foundation Women Leaders in Law Fellowship, an Australian Endeavour Postdoc Fellowship, a Michigan Grotius Fellowship, a New Zealand Law Foundation research grant, an Asia New Zealand Foundation research grant, a Human Rights in Asia fellowship and a Victoria University of Wellington Postgraduate Research Excellence Award, and has conducted fieldwork in Myanmar, South Korea, China, India, and Cook Islands. She is the author of Chinese Refugee Law and Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2020).