Dear Colleagues, I would like to introduce the newest member of the listserv, Zhang Ling (zhang46@fas.harvard.edu), who has offered the following self-introduction: I got my degrees from University of Cambridge and taught Chinese history at Newcastle University (England). Currently I am a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University Center for the Environment, where I am writing my book on the environmental history of north China in the Northern Song period. I will teach a graduate course on the Chinese environmental history, focusing on the issue of water, for Harvard's Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations in the next fall. One of my recent articles is about the environmental history of the Yellow River, published by the HJAS, 69.1 (2009). My research interests are very broad. While not all of them are directly about the environmental studies, I tend to examine the economic history and demographic history of middle-period China from the environmental perspective and try to understand how the human-nature interactions shape and reshape both the natural settings and the path of the Chinese history. My current project focuses on the Hebei Plain, and I plan to move on to the deforestation issue in Shaanxi and Sichuan for my next project. I am also interested in the study of material culture; the history of ceramic, iron, coal, silk industries in middle-period north China is a part of my ongoing project. Yours truly, Michael