Nellie Chu is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke Kunshan University. Her ethnographic and interdisciplinary research focuses on transnational and domestic migrant entrepreneurs across the global supply chains of fast fashion in southern China. Her teaching interests include transnational capitalism, migration (domestic and transnational), gendered labor, fashion, and commodity culture.

She is the author of the book, Precarious Accumulation: Fast Fashion Bosses in Transnational Guangzhou (Duke University Press, 2026). She has papers published in leading academic journals, including positions: east asia critique, Modern Asian Studies, Culture, Theory, and Critique, and Journal of Modern Craft. Her work can also be found in Made in China Journal, Youth Circulations, and Noema Magazine. She has served on the editorial board of the flagship journal, Cultural Anthropology (2022-2025).

Chu has a B.A. in International Relations and German from the University of California, Davis and a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Prior to joining Duke Kunshan, she was a post-doctorate researcher at the University of Goettingen in Germany and at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.