Jay is a Member of the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology (OCMA), a DPhil Associate at the Oxford China Centre (OCC), and a Visiting Research Affiliate at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Since 2024, she has been a Jensen-Grace Scholar at Oxford and was later elected Secretary of the Middle Common Room (MCR) at Harris Manchester College, where she leads postgraduate students in a diverse range of academic and social events. She also undertakes collections and examination invigilation duties at Christ Church College and New College, Oxford. Beyond Oxford, she serves as a Committee Member and Regional Liaison for Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan at the Regional Conference for Maritime and Underwater Cultural Heritage in Asia-Pacific (APConf.MUCH, https://apconf-much.org/), fostering scholarly exchange across these regions.
Between 2023 and 2025, she has been awarded several fully funded scholarships and fellowships to conduct research and fieldwork at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Malaysia’s Sunway University, India’s Delhi University, Vietnam’s Institute of Archaeology, the Polish Academy of Sciences, and China’s National Centre for Archaeology. From 2016 to 2023, Jay held academic and administrative roles at HKU as well as various public appointments within HKSAR Government settings. Since 2017, she received the prestigious Commendation Award from the HKSAR Government’s Secretary for Home Affairs. She was later invited by the Chief Executive of HKSAR Government to join official policy consultations and was appointed in 2020 as the second youngest member of the Youth Development Commission. She was recognized with an Advance HE Fellowship Award during her lectureship at HKU by 2023.
DPhil topic
Jay Mok is a DPhil student in Archaeology at the University of Oxford and the first woman from Hong Kong to be formally trained in maritime, cognitive, and digital archaeology. She previously completed her MSc in Maritime and Cognitive Archaeology at Oxford, funded by the C.C. Wu Foundation. Her current DPhil research focuses on reconstructing the waterscapes of southern China by integrating archaeological evidence with socio-historical and environmental data. Her work challenges land-based and politically bounded approaches to Chinese maritime history and emphasizes the fluidity of maritime lifeways across Sinophone regions. Her DPhil research also draws on her extensive expedition experience in high-altitude, inland, and maritime environments, with a focus on cultural heritage and human-landscape/waterscape interactions.
Between 2016 and 2023, Jay co-organised numerous university-level expeditions to the First Bend of the Yellow River, Jiuzhaigou Lakes, Huanglong (in the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture), the Kekexili no-man’s zone, and other high-altitude maritime environments in Xining (Qinghai), Shigatse (Tibet), Sichuan, and the Tibet Autonomous Region. She also led expeditions to Xinjiang (Turpan, Urumqi), Gansu (Lanzhou, Zhangye, Dunhuang), and Yunnan (Zhongdian Burma-China border, Nujiang-Lisu, and Damo Cave). Overall, Jay is a passionate and cheerful individual who welcomes collaboration from scholars across disciplines interested in maritime archaeology and digital humanities in China, East Asia, and Southeast Asia.
