Yifei Zhang is a doctoral student whose research interests center on East Asian cultural and performance studies, gender and sexuality, oral traditions, and community-based cultural heritage. Her work focuses especially on Traditionnal Northeast Chinese music, literatures and culture. She is also interested in community-based approaches to cultural heritage work, especially how research can work with local communities and practitioners to support the continued practice and transmission of local traditions.

Her research combines ethnographic fieldwork, oral history,music and performance analysis. Her M.A. thesis in ethnomusicology at Kent State University, Compromise and Challenge: Negotiating and Renegotiating Social, Gender, and Sexual Concepts of Errenzhuan Music and Performance in Rural Northeast China, examines Errenzhuan in relation to community cohesion and cultural identity in rural Northeast China. It also considers representations of gender through concepts of yin and yang, and how Errenzhuan negotiates between grassroots cultural practices and changing social expectations.

Yifei has presented her research at academic conferences and institutions in the United States. In 2024, she presented at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) where she discussed the negotiation of gender, sexuality, and social norms through Errenzhuan performance in rural Northeast China. In 2022, she presented Gender in the Field: Rural Traditional Music Performers in Northeast China at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music as part of the conference Asian Performing Arts on Stage and Screen.

Her broader fieldwork experience includes research on ritual traditions in Northeast China, Vajrayana Buddhist communities in Northeast Ohio, and the documentation and transcription of traditional music and performance in Northeast China.

Her interests also extend to public-facing cultural work and arts administration. From 2024 to 2025, she served as Executive Assistant for Video Game Symphony in Northeast Ohio. She has also worked with the Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival & Institute, Porthouse Theatre, and Kent State University’s School of Theatre & Dance.