Dr. Laura Xie is an Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at Virginia Military Institute. She joined the VMI faculty in 2016 and currently serves as Summer Session Director. She received her B.A. in Chinese Literature from Zhejiang University, her M.A. in Chinese Literature from Peking University, and her Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Stanford University. A specialist in Chinese language and culture, she teaches courses across all levels of the Chinese curriculum as well as classes on Chinese literature, theatre, cinema, and civilization. She has directed study abroad programs in China and Taiwan. In 2021, she received the Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award, recognizing her exceptional ability to cultivate students’ intellectual growth and character development.

Her scholarly research focuses on modern Chinese literature, diasporic Chinese writing, and Chinese theatre and performance. She is the editor of Chinese Women Writers in Diaspora: An Anthology of Short Stories (2025) and has published widely on Chinese literature, gender, and cross-cultural performance. She regularly presents her research at national and international conferences.