Yin Cao received his PhD in History from the National University of Singapore. His research interests cover modern India, global history, and India-China relations in the twentieth century. His first book, entitled From Policemen to Revolutionaries: A Sikh Diaspora in Global Shanghai, 1885–1945, was published by Brill in 2017. This book demonstrates how the identity of the Sikh community in modern Shanghai was transformed in the context of the rise and fall of the British imperial network. Other publications by him can be found in journals such as TraNs, Journal of World History, Indian Historical Review, and Britain and the World. 

Yin is currently Associate Professor and Cyrus Tang Scholar at the Department of History, Tsinghua University, Beijing, and is working on two research projects: one on the history of the Chinese community in Pakistan (sponsored by the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas), the other on the Chinese sojourners in India during World War II (sponsored by the National Social Science Fund of China).