Stephen A. Orlins
President, National Committee on US-China Relations 
Steve Orlins has been president of the National Committee since 2005. Prior to that, he was the managing director of Carlyle Asia and the chairman of the board of Taiwan Broadband Communications, one of Taiwan's largest cable television and high speed internet providers. Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. Orlins was a senior advisor to AEA Investors Inc., a New York based leveraged buyout firm, with responsibility for AEA's business activities throughout Asia.
From 1983 to 1991, Mr. Orlins was with the investment banking firm of Lehman Brothers where he was a Managing Director from 1985 to 1991. From 1987 to 1990, he served as President of Lehman Brothers Asia. Based in Hong Kong, he supervised over 150 professionals with offices in Hong Kong, Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Manila and Singapore. Prior to joining Lehman Brothers, Mr. Orlins practiced law with Coudert Brothers and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York, Hong Kong and Beijing. 
From 1976 to 1979, Mr. Orlins served in the Office of the Legal Advisor of the United States Department of State, first in the Office of the Assistant Legal Advisor for Political-Military Affairs and then for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. While in that office, he was a member of the legal team that helped establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. 
Mr. Orlins is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College and earned his law degree at Harvard Law School. He speaks Mandarin Chinese and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 1992, Mr. Orlins was the Democratic nominee for the United States Congress in New York's Third Congressional District.

Ryan Hass 
Fellow, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institution 
Ryan Hass is a fellow and the Michael H. Armacost Chair in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, where he holds a joint appointment to the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies. He was part of the inaugural class of David M. Rubenstein fellows at Brookings. He is also a nonresident affiliated fellow in the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School. Hass focuses his research and analysis on enhancing policy development on the pressing political, economic, and security challenges facing the United States in East Asia.
From 2013 to 2017, Hass served as the director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia at the National Security Council (NSC) staff. In that role, he advised President Obama and senior White House officials on all aspects of U.S. policy toward China, Taiwan, and Mongolia, and coordinated the implementation of U.S. policy toward this region among U.S. government departments and agencies. He joined President Obama’s state visit delegations in Beijing and Washington respectively in 2014 and 2015, and the president’s delegation to Hangzhou, China, for the G-20 in 2016, and to Lima, Peru, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders Meetings in 2016.
Prior to joining NSC, Hass served as a Foreign Service Officer in U.S. Embassy Beijing, where he earned the State Department Director General’s award for impact and originality in reporting, an award given annually to the officer whose reporting had the greatest impact on the formulation of U.S. foreign policy. Hass also served in Embassy Seoul and Embassy Ulaanbaatar, and domestically in the State Department Offices of Taiwan Coordination and Korean Affairs. Hass received multiple Superior Honor and Meritorious Honor commendations during his 15-year tenure in the Foreign Service.
​Hass was born and raised in Washington state. He graduated from the University of Washington and attended the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies prior to joining the State Department.

Avery Goldstein 
Professor of Global Politics and International Relations, University of Pennsylvania 
Avery Goldstein is the David M. Knott Professor of Global Politics and International Relations in the Political Science Department, Inaugural Director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China, and Associate Director of the Christopher H. Browne Center for International Politics at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on international relations, security studies, and Chinese politics. His books include Rising to the Challenge: China’s Grand Strategy and International Security (2005). He is the co-editor of China’s Challenges (2014), The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China (2016), China’s Global Engagement: Cooperation, Competition, and Influence in the 21st Century (2017) and To Get Rich is Glorious: Challenges Facing China’s Economic Reform and Opening at Forty (2019). Among his other publications are articles in the journals International Security, International Organization, Journal of Strategic Studies, Security Studies, China Quarterly, Asian Survey, Comparative Politics, Orbis, and Polity as well as chapters in a variety of edited volumes. Goldstein is also a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia

Yukon Huang
Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment 
Yukon Huang is  a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington D.C.  He was formerly the World Bank’s Country Director for China and earlier Russia.  He is an advisor to the World Bank, ADB, AIIB and various governments and corporations.   Dr. Huang is a noted expert on China’s economy and its regional and global impact. He has published widely on development issues in professional journals and the public media.  His articles on China are seen frequently in the New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Diplomat, Foreign Policy, Bloomberg and South China Morning Post.  His latest book Cracking the China Conundrum: Why Conventional Economic Wisdom Is Wrong was published by Oxford University Press (2017).  He has a PhD in economics from Princeton University and a BA from Yale University.

Denis Simon 
Executive Vice Chancellor, Duke Kunshan University 
Dr. Denis Fred Simon became the Executive Vice Chancellor of Duke Kunshan University in 2015. He also is Professor of China Business and Technology Affairs in the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.
Dr. Simon joined DKU in August 2015 from Arizona State University, where he had served as senior adviser to the president for China-related strategic initiatives, executive director of the University Design Institute, and Foundation Professor of Contemporary Chinese Affairs in the School of Politics and Global Studies. Dr. Simon previously held international affairs leadership positions and faculty appointments at several prominent research universities in the United States and China. An expert on science and technology policy and innovation strategy, he also has extensive private sector experience, having held China-based leadership roles at both Monitor Consulting Group and Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). He has written and lectured widely regarding innovation issues, high technology development, foreign investment and corporate strategy, and higher education in the Pacific-Rim and is frequently quoted in the Western and Asian business press regarding commercial and technology trends in China, Hong Kong and the Asia-Pacific region.
Having first visited Asia in 1976 and the China mainland in 1981, Dr. Simon has developed an extensive network of professional relationships throughout business, government, and academia in the region. A member of the editorial boards of Chinese Management Studies and the Journal of Science and Technology Policy in China, he also has served as a senior adviser to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on technology and innovation matters related to China. From 2007-2015, he also served as member of the American Experts Group within the US-China Innovation Dialogue organized by China's Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House. In 2006, he received the China National Friendship Award from former Premier Wen Jiabao, China’s highest form of recognition for foreign experts.
Dr. Simon received his B.A. degree in Asian Studies from the State University of New York in 1974. He received his M.A. degree in Asian Studies in 1975 and Ph.D. in Political Science in 1980 from the University of California at Berkeley. He both speaks and reads Mandarin Chinese.

Yingyi Ma 
Associate Professor, Syracuse University
Yingyi Ma is an associate professor of sociology and senior research associate in the Center for Policy Research at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, where she is also director of the Asian/Asian American Studies Program. She is a sociologist of education and migration. Her new book, titled Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education, is published by Columbia University Press. Another line of her work examines who study what and why, and the labor market consequences of educational choices. This line of work has resulted in peer-reviewed research articles. She is a fellow of the Public Intellectuals Program of the National Committee on United States-China Relations.

Barbara Finamore 
Asia Director, Natural Resources Defense Council 
Barbara Finamore is a Senior Attorney and Asia Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Ms. Finamore founded NRDC’s China Program, which promotes innovative policy development, capacity building and market transformation in China with a focus on climate, clean energy, environmental protection and urban solutions. Ms. Finamore has had thirty-five years of experience in environmental law and energy policy, with a focus on China for over two decades. She has also worked in NRDC's nuclear nonproliferation program, at the U.S. Departments of Justice and Interior, and as a consultant to the United Nations Development Programme and the Center for International Environmental Law. Ms. Finamore served as President and Chair of the Professional Association for China's Environment (PACE), and is the co-founder and President of the China-U.S. Energy Efficiency Alliance, a nonprofit organization and public-private partnership that works with China to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency. She holds a J.D. degree with honors from Harvard Law School.

Teng Biao 
Visiting Scholar, US-Asia Law Institute, New York University 
Dr. Teng Biao is an academic lawyer, currently Grove Human Rights Scholar at Hunter College, and Pozen Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago. He had been a lecturer at the China University of Politic and Law (Beijing), a visiting scholar at Yale, Harvard, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, New York University and the Institute for Advanced Study. Teng’s research focuses on criminal justice, human rights, social movements, and political transition in China. Teng defended cases involving freedom of expression, religious freedom, the death penalty, Tibetans and Uyghurs. He co-founded two human rights NGOs in Beijing – the Open Constitution Initiative, and China Against the Death Penalty, in 2003 and 2010, respectively. He is one of the earliest promoters of the Rights Defense Movement in China and the manifesto Charter 08, for which Dr. Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Teng has received various international human rights awards including the Human Rights Prize of the French Republic (2007). 

Lenora Chu
Journalist and Author of Little Soldiers 
Lenora Chu is a journalist and author of the award-winning Little Soldiers, a narrative account of China’s education system (HarperCollins, 2017). She is also a Berlin-based correspondent covering Europe for the nonprofit news organization Christian Science Monitor. With 15 years’ experience in the U.S. and China, Lenora’s work illuminates the intersection of culture, education, policy and global competitiveness — a passion borne in part of growing up with Chinese parents in America. 
In 2019, she was named to the public intellectuals program of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. As a commentator, Lenora has appeared on NPR, CBS, BBC, and the CBC, and her articles and op-eds have been published in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Cut and Business Insider, among others. Her first book won ASJA’s 2018 nonfiction prize and was also shortlisted for Stanford’s Saroyan International Prize. A former media and management consultant, Lenora holds degrees in engineering and journalism from Stanford and Columbia. ​

Yan Song 
Director, Program on Chinese Cities 
Song’s research interests includes low carbon and green cities, plan evaluation, land use development and regulations, spatial analysis of urban spatial structure and urban form, land use and transportation integration and how to accommodate research in the above fields by using planning supporting systems such as GIS and other computer-aided planning tools.
Song’s current research projects address domestic and international issues in the areas of impetus of urbanization and urban growth, tools of low carbon and green city developments, efficacy of land and housing markets, effects of urban growth management regulations, and integration of urban land use and transportation plans. Song’s current research projects also document evolution of China’s urban land and housing policies and urban spatial structure in the era of China’s transition toward a market economy. She directs the Program on Chinese Cities (PCC), a new initiative within DCRP and the Center for Urban & Regional Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. PCC conducts research and training aimed at better understanding the impacts of rapid urban growth on China’s built and natural environments and explores ways to make this process more equitable, transparent, and socially and ecologically sustainable. Dr. Song’s research projects have been supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Song has served as a Research Affiliate at the National Center for Smart Growth at the University of Maryland and a Faculty Fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. She has also served as a consultant on urban planning for the city government of Shenzhen, and a consultant on land use and transportation integration for Beijing Municipal Institute of City Planning and Design in China. For more recent and frequent updates on her research projects in Chinese, click here.

Maria Adele Carrai 
Fellow, Harvard University Asia Center 
Maria Adele Carrai is a sinologist and political scientist with interest in conceptual history and history of international law. She is a recipient of a three-year Marie Curie Fellowship at the Leuven Centre for Global Governance – KU Leuven, a Fellow at Harvard University Asia Center, and an Associate Research Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute of Columbia University. She has published on Chinese legal history, China political economy, and on the Belt and Road Initiative. Her first book Sovereignty in China. A Genealogy of a Concept since 1840 (Cambridge University Press, 2019) looks at the long history of China within the international legal order through the concept of sovereignty. She co-edited the book The Belt and Road Initiative and Global Governance (Edward Elgar Publisher, 2020) and has written various articles on various aspects of China's engagement with the world in peer-reviewed journals. Carrai completed her Ph.D. at the University of Hong Kong, where she was Swire Scholar and a recipient of the Hong Kong Government Ph.D. Fellowship and the Award for Outstanding Research Postgraduate Student for 2015-16. She was a fellow at Columbia University’s Italian Academy, Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program, European University Institute of Florence, and New York University Law School.

Sun Zhe
Scholar of International and Public Affairs 
Sun Zhe is the author and editor of more than twenty books on comparative politics and U.S.-China relations, including New Thinking on Human Rights (1992), The Politics of Dictatorship (1995), Influencing the Future: the Institutional Transformation and the Decision Making Process of the U.S. Congress (2001), The Studies of U.S. Congress Series (2002, 2003), U.S. Congress and China: Cases and Analyses (2003), Rise and Expansion: American Domestic Politics and US-China Relations (2004), The Remaking of the National People’s Congress in China, 1979-2000 (2004), American Studies in China: 1979-2006 (2007), and Tsinghua Review of US-China Relations (2009-2015). 
Sun Zhe served as a senior consultant to the US-China Strategic & Economic Dialogue, a senior policy adviser to the Office of Taiwan Affairs of the State Council. He is a board member of the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs and the US-China Peoples' Friendship Association, also serving as an independent director of CitiGroup (China) Ltd. as well as MGM (China) Ltd.

Jeremy Smith
James C. Gaither Junior Fellow, Asia Program, Carnegie Endowment 
Jeremy Smith is a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow with the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His recent research focuses on trade and technology tensions between the U.S. and China as well as China’s innovative ambitions. His articles have appeared in Foreign Policy and South China Morning Post.  Smith graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Williams College with majors in Chinese and Economics. He also conducted intensive Mandarin studies at the Hangzhou campus of the Middlebury School in China.