His research focuses on the reward mechanism of feeding behavior and drug addiction. While studying both behaviors he found that feeding could become pathological (addiction) if the right conditions were present.

His research examines early modernity, Christianity and the thought of Niccolo Machiavelli. His teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include U.S. studies, ethics and leadership, institutions and governance, and political science. Parsons has a B.A. in political science from the University of Maine and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Toronto. Before joining Duke Kunshan, he taught at Carroll College, Montana.

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.

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.

His research focus is on intersections of nonlinear dynamics, acoustics of Asian musical instruments, and mathematical physics. He is currently interested in the tuning of the guqin and guzheng, and with high-frequency overtones of both spoken Chinese and Asian operatic singing. For fun, he writes high school-level physics competition problems and experiments.

John Noonan's interests lie in the areas of English language learning for the purposes of journalism, communications and various forms of mass media. In particular, he is interested in English language environmental writing, media ethics, visual media production and experiential learning. Prior to attending journalism school, Noonan obtained a TESOL certificate, and has taught ESL for over 20 years, from Istanbul, Turkey, to New York City.

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.