XIE Shi, male, was born in Chenghai, Guangdong Province in 1981. He graduated from Department of History at Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) in 2004 and obtained his Ph.D. degree in Historical Geography from Fudan University in 2009. Since then he has been working at Department of History, SYSU and upgraded to be a full professor in 2015. He worked at the Macmillan Center of Yale University, U.S.A. as a visiting scholar during 2015 to 2016. Widely recognized as a youth leading scholar in Historical Geography, History of Ming & Qing Dynasty and Historical Anthropology in China, Professor XIE serves as a research fellow of the Co-Centre for Historical Anthropology, Chinese University of Hong Kong and Sun Yat-sen University. He is selected to be the secretary-general of the National Administry Committee on History Teaching to Majors in Higher Education under the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the vice director and secretary-general of Guangdong Society of Historical Studies.

Professor XIE has been funded by special programs for distinguished scholars from MOE and other central governmental ministries. He has received a series of academic awards including the First Prize of National New Stars of Historical Research (2004), the Finalist Winner of the National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation (2011), the First Prize of Outstanding Achievement Award of Philosophy and Social Science in Guangdong Province (2011, 2017), Special Award of Excellent Education Achievement in Guangdong Province (2019), the first session of the New History awards to the Best Book of Young Scholars (2019), the third session of Puyin Award to Arts and Humanities Studies (2019), the eighth session of MOE Award for Scientific Research Achievements in Higher Education (2020), the fourth session of the Global Chinese Best Young Scholar of Traditional Chinese Learning (2020), the fifth session of Simian Original Awards to Young Scholars (2022).

Since the year 2017, he has taken up several positions including Head of Department of History, Dean of Boya (Liberal Arts) College and Dean of Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities. He has been appointed as Vice President of SYSU since January 2023.