Cheon’s research focuses on governance, contestation, and conflict in the age of climate change and great power competition. He is currently researching global and regional leadership in the international system and microfoundations of threat perceptions among great powers.

His teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include International Politics, Global Governance, and International Politics of East Asia. He is the recipient of the 2025 DKU Teaching Award.

Cheon is the author of Fueling State Capitalism (Oxford University Press, 2023) and the co-author of Activism and the Fossil Fuel Industry (Routledge, 2018). He has had papers published in reputable academic journals including Comparative Political Studies, Economics and Politics, and Journal of Conflict Resolution.

Cheon has an A.B. in Political Science and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES) from Duke University, where he was the founding president of the student organization Duke East Asia Nexus. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.

Before joining Duke Kunshan, he was Assistant Professor of International Political Economy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C.