Keru Cai is Lecturer of Chinese Studies in the School of Humanities and Languages at UNSW. She earned her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley; she also holds Master's degrees from Harvard University (Regional Studies: East Asia) and University of Oxford (English Literature); and her Bachelor's degree was awarded by Harvard's English Department (Summa Cum Laude, with highest departmental honours).

Dr. Cai's research and teaching encompass modern and contemporary Chinese literature, film, and culture. She is the author of Poverty in Modern Chinese Realism: From Russia, with Squalor (Oxford University Press, 2025), winner of the Columbia University Weatherhead East Asia Institute First Book Award. She has published widely in Chinese and comparative literary studies. Her next book project will put Xiao Hong's literary depictions of childbirth in conversations with health humanities. Current article projects include tracing the Russian superfluous man's afterlife as a Chinese superfluous woman, and examining Bi Gan's engagement with Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker in the film Kaili Blues.

Prior to joining UNSW, Dr. Cai was Lecturer at the University of St Andrews and Assistant Professor at the Pennsylvania State University; she also held a Fellowship by Examination at University of Oxford (Magdalen College).