Elena Yi-Jia Zeng specializes in modern political theory and European intellectual history. Her research addresses the epistemological and institutional factors that give rise to liberalism. In pursuing this line of inquiry, she investigates the role of skepticism in Enlightenment moral and political thought, focusing on Britain, France and Germany. Her works have been published in peer-reviewed history, politics and philosophy journals. She also guest-edited the special issue “David Hume and Political Epistemology” for Cosmos and Taxis. At UCHV, she is working on her first monograph The Politics of Belief in Enlightenment Skepticism, and undertaking a new project on “The Sustainable Political Economy of the Stationary State.”

Elena was elected a Postgraduate Member of the UK’s Royal Historical Society in 2022. She completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2024. She read history in Taiwan, and gained an MA in History of Political Thought and Intellectual History at the University of London.