Dr. Yichen Rao is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University. He holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies from The University of Hong Kong and has held research positions as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Comparative Media Studies at MIT, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan, and an Ernst Mach Fellow in Anthropology at the University of Vienna. From 2024 to 2027, he serves as the council member for the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S). He is also the board member of Sci-Tech Asia, an international research network. 

Rao’s research explores the unintended societal impacts of digital techno-fetishism in gaming, fintech, and infrastructure. His ethnographic fieldwork has examined treatment camps for youth internet addiction, digital Ponzi schemes disguised as fintech platforms, and the covert influence of China’s data infrastructure on the global cryptocurrency market. He has also studied digital debt collection practices, the cultural phenomenon of Animal Crossing during the pandemic, and the embodied experience of being “digital” in the contexts of global pandemics.

Currently, Rao is developing a research project on digital scams, particularly “pig-butchering scams” in global China, investigating how the semiotics of digital deception operate across cultural and geopolitical boundaries.