Dr. Qian Gu is a Professor at the School of Liberal Arts at Nanjing University, Director of the Nanjing University Institute for the Study of Dialects and Culture, and Distinguished Professor in the Chang Jiang Scholars Program. She also served as Chief Chinese Partner in the Luce Foundation US-China Cooperative Research Program. Her primary areas of research include Chinese dialectology, historical linguistics and dialect geography. She is the General Editor of the Studies in the Dialects of Jiangsu series (Zhonghua shuju, China). Her publications include Research in Tong-Tai Dialect Phonology (Lincom Press, Germany), and a translation of Chinese Dialect Classification (Zhonghua shuju, China). She has published extensively in academic journals, including Zhongguo yuwen [Chinese Language], Fangyan [Dialects], and Language and Linguistics Monograph Series. Prof. Gu is also the recipient of the Lǚ Shūxiāng Award in Chinese Linguistics awarded by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.Dr. Richard VanNess Simmons is a Professor of Chinese and Former Chair of the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at Rutgers University. His primary areas of research include Chinese dialectology, dialect geography and historical linguistics. His research activities include extensive fieldwork experience investigating and mapping the dialects of Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces in China. Simmons’ publications include Chinese Dialect Classification (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1999; revision and translation in Chinese–Beijing: Zhonghua, 2010), Issues in Chinese Dialect Description and Classification (Journal of Chinese Linguistics Monograph Series, Number 15), Chinese Dialect Geography: Distinguishing Mandarin and Wu in Their Boundary Region (Shanghai: Shanghai Education), and Shanghainese Dictionary And Phrasebook (New York: Hippocrene). He was awarded the Jiangsu Certificate of Friendship by Jiangsu Provincial Government of China.
