历史学博士，清史研究所教授，博士生导师。教育部1999年首届全国优秀博士学位论文获得者，哈佛燕京学社访问学者（2007-2008）。主要研究中国近代灾荒史、环境史以及社会经济史。曾参与撰写《近代中国灾荒纪年续编》（湖南教育出版社）、《中国近代十大灾荒》（上海人民出版社）等，出版专著《民国时期自然灾害与乡村社会》（中华书局，2000）、《近世棘途：生态变迁中的中国现代化进程》（中国人民大学出版社，2012），主编《新史学》第六卷《历史的生态学解释》（中华书局，2012），合作编纂《中国荒政书集成》（全12册，天津古籍出版社，2010）等。

    Xia Mingfang, director of the Center for Ecological History is professor at the Institute for Qing Historz (IQH) at RUC. He is also deputy director of the IQH and editor-in chief of Studies in Qing History and vice chairman of the advisory board of the Association of Chinese Agricultural History. His main research fields are history of disasters and famine, environmental history, and history of social economy of Modern China. As a member of the research team on "Disasters and Famine in Modern China" at RUC, he participated in writing of The Sequel to the Chronological Record of Disasters and Famine in Modern China, and The Top Ten Disasters in Modern China. He is also author of Natural Disasters and Rural Society in the Republic of China, and The Bumpy Path toward the Modern Era: The Process of Chinese Modernization in Ecological Transformations. He co-edits the book series “Ecology and People,” that publishes translations of environmental history. His most recent work is an edited issue on ecological history in the annually published journal of New History.