He’s research explores the interactions between human behaviors, government policy and the environment in the context of developing countries, with special interests in land use, conservation, natural resource management and rural development. Trained as an economist with a strong interdisciplinary background, he is particularly interested in incorporating economic thinking with non-economic methodology. His teaching interests at Duke Kunshan University include environmental and resource economics, environmental policy analysis and the statistics of program evaluation.

He has a B.A. in environmental studies from Brown University, an M.A. in economics from New York University and a Ph.D. in environmental policy from Duke University. Before joining Duke Kunshan, he was assistant professor at Wuhan University.