Xiaofei Pan

Her primary research interests include second language writing, second language assessment and quantitative research methodology for second language acquisition. She involves innovative teaching methods and authentic use of language in her classroom. Pan has a Ph.D. in second language acquisition from the University of Iowa. Before joining DKU, she taught Chinese as a second language at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, the CIEE Shanghai Learning Center, and the University of Iowa.

Jesse Olsavsky

He teaches and researches broadly in social movements, U.S. history and politics, and African American history. In particular, his work focuses on the history of African slavery in the Americas, the international movements to abolish African slavery and the intellectual history of pan-Africanism. His research has been funded by such institutions as the American Council of Learned Societies, the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History and the Schomburg Center for the Study of African American Life and Culture. Olsavsky has a B.A.

Rasoul Namazi

His research focus is the comparative study of Islamic and Western political thought. His work has appeared in Journal of Religion, Perspectives on Political Science, American Political Thought, Iranian Studies, Interpretation, Review of Politics, Renaissance & Reformation, and Eurorient, as well as collected volumes. His teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include Islamic and Western political thought. His book (forthcoming with Cambridge University Press) is a comprehensive study of Leo Strauss's writings on Islamic political thought.

James Miller

His research focuses on the intersection of religion and ecology in China. He has published six books including "China's Green Religion: Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future" (Columbia, 2017). He is noted worldwide as an expert in Daoism, China's indigenous religion. His teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include ethics and leadership, global China studies, environmental science, U.S. studies, religious studies and philosophy. Miller has a B.A. (honors) in Chinese studies from Durham University, a B.A. (honors) and M.A.

Yu Miao

Her primary focus in classroom instruction is to prepare students for real-life interaction with native speakers of Chinese. Her primary research interests include interactive instruction, comprehension-led learning, cross-cultural communication, teaching material development, and Chinese language teacher training. Miao has a M.A. in teaching Chinese to speakers of other languages (TCSOL) from Northeast Normal University, China.

Scott MacEachern

His archaeological work focuses on the southern Lake Chad Basin of Central Africa. His main research interests are in state formation processes in Africa, international cultural heritage management issues, the archaeological study of ethnicity and social boundaries, and African and global archaeogenetics. His most recent book is "Searching for Boko Haram: A History of Violence in Central Africa." His teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include cultures and movements, anthropology and archaeology, and courses that connect to global health and environmental science. MacEachern has a B.A.

Andrew Macdonald

His research focuses on service provision in authoritarian regimes and the incentive structure of developing nations in providing social welfare benefits, as well as how individuals are impacted by and react to state narratives and ideology. His primary interest is in finding new ways of unlocking data to better understand individual-level outcomes in China. His teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include political economy, institutions and governance, and political science. MacDonald has a B.A. in history and an M.A. in East Asian studies from Stanford University, and an M.Phil and Ph.D.

Ding Ma

His broad research interests are climate variability, weather extremes, and atmospheric dynamics. The essential motivation for his research is to better understand and predict the behavior of the climate system, which has led to his focus on the variability of the large-scale atmospheric circulation and the related weather extremes. His teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include environmental science and physics. He has had papers published in leading academic journals including Nature Communications, Journal of Climate, and Journal of Atmospheric Sciences.