Pengzhan Guo's research project covers methodology and applications in machine learning and data mining. He is especially interested in parallel computing, human resource management and mobile computing. His teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include linear algebra and machine learning. He has published papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings such as IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE), ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology (TIST), and the IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM).

An applied microeconomist, her primary research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of applied microeconomics, health and labor economics. Her research centers on explaining socioeconomic disparities, understanding preference formation, identifying optimal economic behaviors for individuals and society, and understanding how policy can help achieve these ends. After working as a research specialist at Princeton University, Industrial Relations Section, she started a Ph.D. program at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in 2011. She also interned at the U.N.

His research focus is chemical transport and fate in a multimedia environment. He is especially interested in nutrient retention in soil, groundwater, river and lake by the coupled hydrological and biogeochemical processes. His teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include environmental science, biogeochemistry, Earth science, and ecology. He has published articles in prestigious journals and served as UNC representative for the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science. He has also served on proposal review panels for the U.S. National Science Foundation.

A theoretical physicist by training, Pascal Grange is interested in quantitative models of systems with many degrees of freedom. His current field of research is the statistical physics of out-of-equilibrium systems (this class of systems includes living systems). His teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include calculus and probability. His work has appeared in leading academic journals including Nuclear Physics B, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences?(PNAS) and Journal of Physics A (Mathematical and Theoretical).

His research examines topics in environmental history and the history of science. He is especially interested in climate history and is completing a project on climate change debates in the late 19th-century United States. At Duke Kunshan, his teaching interests include U.S. history, environmental humanities, science and technology studies, and geography. He has published articles in Environment and History, and History of Meteorology. Giacomelli has a B.A. in history and geography from Middlebury College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in history from Cornell University.

As a comparative political economy scholar, Paula Ganga uses her knowledge of advanced statistical methodologies, seven languages and travel to over 40 countries to examine the?economic outcomes of political institutions,?state-market interactions, the political actors driving the process and the inequalities between the winners and losers of this process. Ganga is particularly interested in populism and economic nationalism, inequality and economic development, energy and environmental policy, corruption and transparency, and democratic backsliding.

Dr. Field (B.A. Dartmouth College, Ph.D. Columbia University) is a specialist in Chinese and East Asian languages, cultures, and history, with an expertise in the history of Shanghai.

Her research focus is motivation and persistence for learning Chinese as a second/foreign language. She teaches Chinese language courses at Duke Kunshan. She is a journal reviewer for K-12 Chinese Language Teaching and Foreign Language Annals.

Dr. Pablo Encinas Arquero's research and professional interests include comparative education and second language acquisition. He is particularly interested in the factors involved in cross-cultural evaluation of teaching quality and in the acquisition of vocabulary in a foreign language. Before coming to Duke Kunshan University, Encinas Arquero worked at the University of Plymouth, the University of Nottingham, Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University and in the Foreign Studies College of Hunan Normal University, where he was an associate professor in Spanish and English Linguistics.

His research interests are in the general areas of dynamical systems and mathematical physics, with the main focus being on the geometry of integrable Hamiltonian systems and the dynamics of coupled oscillator networks. He has published a monograph on integrable Hamiltonian systems and his research has appeared prestigious journals.