ZHENG Yan has been a professor in the Department of Art History, School of Humanities at the China Central Academy of Arts since 2003. Previously, he served in numerous positions at the Shandong Provincial Museum from 1988-2003, receiving his PhD in archaeology from the Chinese Academy of Social Science in 2001. ZHENG graduated with a degree in history from Shandong University in 1988. He has been a visiting scholar at both the University of Chicago and Harvard University, and a senior fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Visual Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
ZHENG is the author of several books including Beyond Death: Funerary Art of Ancient China, The Study of Tomb Murals of Wei-Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties, and From Archaeology to Art History as well as numerous academic articles and chapters in edited volumes.