Cao’s research lies at the intersection of art, archaeology, technology, and epigraphy of early China. His current book manuscript examines how Yangtze societies from the 14th to 9th centuries BCE assimilated foreign artistic traditions and developed their own bronze practices, contributing to models of transregional transmission of ideas and technologies in complex societies.

Cao collaborates with colleagues in physics, engineering, computer science, and media art to advance interdisciplinary digital humanities. He served as Co-PI of Pilgrimage to Pureland: Art, Perception, and the Wutai Mural VR Reconstruction and participated in the Ancient Art and Higgs Boson project at Princeton University. His current projects include computational modeling for artifact reconstruction and simulations examining the relationships between object form, metallic strength, and alloy composition in ancient bronzes.

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