Professor Tonia Eckfeld is an art historian and Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne. She has received many awards, including Research Fellow at Harvard University, Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago, Honorary Professor at Zhengzhou University and Distinguished Research Fellow at Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an. She is internationally renowned for her fieldwork research on material cultureand archaeology, especially of Chinese imperial tombs. Tonia is author of the landmark book, Imperial Tombs in Tang China, 618–907, The Politics of Paradise and numerous other scholarly works. She lectures internationally, is an expert curator on international exhibitions, and academic adviser and on-screen expert for documentary films on art, history and cultural heritage (for National Geographic, Discovery Channel, CCTV and others). Tonia lives in Melbourne where she practises tai chi, rides her Vespa and learns meditation from her cat.