Kent Cao specializes in the art and archaeology of early China, with a broad interest in Eurasian cultural interconnections. His forthcoming monograph, based on art historical and technical analysis, examines the development of the indigenous bronze industry in the Yangtze River region of South China from the 14th to the 9th century BCE. The expansion of the Erligang state from the Central Plain in the 15th century BCE facilitated the dissemination of its advanced bronze art and metallurgy. Understanding how Yangtze societies assimilated foreign artistic traditions and independently developed their own bronze practices provides a new perspective on China's formation from its frontiers. This project also contributes to theoretical models of transregional transmission of ideas and technologies in early complex societies. His next book project explores the revival of bronze archaism and antiquarianism in Song China and Kamakura Japan. This book aims to offer a nuanced account of the interplay between political aspirations, ritual prestige, and artistic renaissance in the Middle Period East Asia.

Cao is actively engaged in digital humanities. He collaborates with colleagues in experimental physics, electrical engineering, computer science, and media art to integrate interdisciplinary methods into humanities research. He participated in the Ancient Art and Higgs Boson: Non-destructive Muon Imaging, a cutting-edge project between the Department of Physics, Princeton University and the Princeton University Art Museum, and served as Co-PI of Pilgrimage to Pureland: Art, Perception, and the Wutai Mural VR Reconstruction. His current projects include automated algorithmic modeling for artifact reconstruction from sherds and debris and computational simulations examining the relationships between object form, metallic strength, and alloy composition in ancient bronzes.

Cao holds a Ph.D. in East Asian Art and Archaeology from Princeton University, an M.St. in Archaeology from the University of Oxford, and read Archaeology and Anthropology at University College London and the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research has been published in Artibus Asiae and the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, among others, and has received support from the Smithsonian Institution, Henry Luce Foundation, Getty Research Institute, and American Council of Learned Societies.