1995-2001年就读于华中师范大学，获历史学硕士学位。2002年负笈美国，师从唐纳德·沃斯特教授研习美国环境史，2008年获堪萨斯大学美国史博士学位。曾在清华大学历史系博士后流动站（2008-2010）和德国慕尼黑大学卡森中心（2011年; 2013年）工作。现为中国人民大学历史学院副教授，主要从事美国环境史及中国近现代环境思想史研究。出版专著《城市自然化：〈园与森林〉杂志与美国环保主义的兴起》（The City Natural: Garden and Forest Magazine and the Rise of American Environmentalism,University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013）。目前的研究主题为 “山巅之城：波士顿的环境变迁与改革，1803-1901”与Old Land, New Nature: The Journey of the Ideas and Practices of Nature Conservation from the United States to Modern China。译有唐纳德·沃斯特著《帝国之河：水、干旱与美国西部的成长》（译林出版社，2018）。

Dr. Hou Shen joined the faculty of the History Department of RUC in 2010. She worked with Prof. Donald Worster and received her Ph.D. in American history from the University of Kansas in May 2008. Her book manuscript,The City Natural: Garden and Forest Magazine and the Rise of American Environmentalism, based on her dissertation, has been published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in its Urban Environmental History series in 2013. She was in residence as a Carson fellow at the Rachel Carson Center, Munich, Germany, from February to August, 2011 and from June to December 2013. Her article “Garden and Forest: A Forgotten Magazine and the Roots of American Environmentalism” has been published inEnvironmental History in the October 2012 issue.

Dr. Hou is now working on two new projects: “Old Land, New Nature: The Journey of the Ideas and Practices of Nature Conservation from the United States to Modern China,” and a book tentatively entitled,City on a Hill: Environmental Change and Reform in Boston, 1803-1901. She is also translating into Chinese the bookRivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American Westby Donald Worster.