Shuo Luan was born and raised in Beijing. Since 2018, he has been studying Fijian under Professor Paul Geraghty and working with him on the development of Fijian language materials. From 2019 to 2020, he studied Fijian with Professor Albert Schütz in the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he researched on Chinese news media and academic representations of Pacific Island countries. In 2022, he started working and teaching Fijian in Beijing Foreign Studies University. Shuo commenced his PhD candidature at DPA in 2023. His current research is an extension of his MA thesis and focuses on framings of Pacific Island countries on Chinese social media platforms, particularly WeChat and Weibo.

Note: other than Denghua Zhang, Graeme Smith, and Annika Werner, Shuo is also supervised by Tarcisius Kabutaulaka from University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.