Lianyun’s primary research interests include second language pragmatics and Chinese language acquisition. Her teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include the culture and language of Mandarin Chinese.

She has had papers published in academic journals including the Literature Education Journal, Journal of International Chinese Teaching and Journal of Advanced Japanese Language Education. She has led two projects, including one research project about pragmatic acquisition and another first-class curriculum project of L2 acquisition. Lianyun has won several teaching prizes for innovation in project-based education. She has been a member of Chinese Teacher Association of Kentucky in the U.S. since 2015.

Pang has a dual B.A. in teaching Chinese as a foreign language and culture management from Shandong University, an M.A. (recommended for admission) in teaching Chinese as second language from Shandong University and a Ph.D. in Chinese Language Education from Peking University. Before joining Duke Kunshan, she taught teaching Chinese as a second language in four different countries, including the University of Kentucky in the U.S., Chung-Nam National University in South Korea, Rennes 2 University in France, Jinan University in Guangzhou and Hainan Tropical Ocean University. She has been teaching Chinese to multilingual students from Asia, Russia, Ukraine, Europe, North America, Africa, South America and Australia. Her teaching experiences have enabled her to accumulate various teaching methods and classroom management skills, which have helped her ignite a greater interest in the Chinese language among students.