Naren Gao is a PhD student in the History of Art and Architecture Department at the University of Pittsburgh. She studies Chinese and Inner Asian art in relation to the built environment during the Mongol period (13th–14th centuries). Her research focuses on visual and material culture, particularly the decorative arts, among Inner Asian ethnic and sociopolitical groups and institutions. She is currently working on a dissertation project, tentatively titled “Tomb Art and the Reconfiguration of Mortuary Practice in the Eastern Mongol Empire,” which examines tombs, funerary monuments, and burial practices, especially burial divination, in the Eastern Mongol Empire.
