Kwang Leong Choy’s research focuses on the development of high performance nanostructured and nanocomposite materials based on superthin/thin/thick films using novel and advanced materials synthesis methods for solar cells, energy storage, optoelectronics, environment, engineering, healthcare and biomedical applications. Her pioneering research on the innovative, eco-friendly and cost effective non-vacuum Chemical Vapour Deposition platform technology has led to patents, technology translation and exploitation by industrial companies as well as recognition awards, including the Kroll Medal & Prize (2020) and Grunfeld Memorial Award and Medal (1999) by The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IoM3). She has led and participated in many national, European and international research projects with a large consortium of academia and industries.

She has authored four books, “Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD): Advances, Technology and Applications” (CRC Press, 2019), “Biomaterials in Clinical Practice: Advances in Clinical Research and Medical Devices” (Springer, 2017), “Commercialization of Nanotechnologies–A Case Study Approach” (Springer, 2017) and “Innovative and Cost-effective Materials Processing Methods” (Imperial College Press, London 2002). She has over 300 publications to her name, including papers published in leading academic journals such as Progress in Materials Science, Advanced Materials and ACS Nano. Her teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include materials science, materials synthesis and characterization, nanoscale functional materials and courses that connect materials to energy, environmental science and global health sectors.

Choy has a D.Phil. in materials science from the University of Oxford and a D.Sc. in materials from the University of Nottingham. Before joining Duke Kunshan, she was the founding director of the Institute for Materials Discovery and professor for materials discovery at University College London (UCL). She was also course director of the postgraduate taught programme (MSc) in advanced materials science at UCL.

She has served as a chairperson in materials and research director of the University Innovation Centre at the University of Nottingham, and as a reader at Imperial College London. Choy also held the Violette and Glasstone Research Fellowship at the University of Oxford. She has received teaching awards from the University of Nottingham and University College London. She has been awarded Fellow of The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2007 and 2010, respectively.

His research has three foci: (1) harmful algal blooms (HABs), (2) microbiomics, and (3) molecular systems biology. The HAB research aims to identify the functional genomic repertoire that drive bloom formation, and the interaction between functional repertoire and eutrophic conditions through multi-omics integration. Microbiomics aims to the understand the interactions among different group of microbial taxa in microbiomes of aquatic and soil environments, and the underlies genomic functional mechanisms. His current work centers on cyanobacterial bloom microbiomes and human gut microbiome (for example, gut microbiome transplantation and cancer microbiome). Molecular systems biology focuses on the structural decomposition and metabolic networks and development of integration of multi-omics data; this work will reveal how cellular life operates on a systems scale and provide the essential computational tools for analyzing multi-omics data.
He has authored over 40 research articles, book chapters, and reviews, and has had work published in the journal Briefings in Bioinformatics. One database of the common ecophysiology of cyanobacterial blooms has been developed for use in the water-bloom research community (http://47.92.225.177/CGDatabase).
Cao has a B.Sc. in biochemistry from Yantai University and a Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from Fordham University. Before joining Duke Kunshan, he was an assistant research professor at Arizona State University and completed training in bioinformatics at Northern Illinois University and computational systems biology at the University of Georgia.

His research interest hinges on the intersections between computation and design. With the rise of smartphones and other internet-connected devices, design choices become increasingly data-driven and dependent on information’s credibility in the construction of the human habitat. Chang’s research focuses on human habitat’s design, environmental impact, and information’s credibility in the big-data age. His teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include computational social science, digital humanities, and urban informatics.
He has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals and at conferences, including on dig data and machine learning in natural science, social science, and the humanities.
Chang has a B.A. in geography from Beijing Normal University, and a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in environmental studies from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Before joining Duke Kunshan, he served as the 2016-2017 postdoctoral fellow in Chinese studies at Stanford University and the 2018-2019 postdoctoral associate in Asian studies at Yale University.

Jimmy is an applied ecologist with expertise in animal ecology, conservation biology, wetland ecology and environmental management. He studies the relationship between animals and their environment. Current study systems include the ecology of migratory birds, with a focus on their foraging and movement ecology within and between coastal intertidal wetlands. This requires extensive fieldwork in many places ranging from Alaska, East Asia to Australia and New Zealand. The work has led to investigations of diet, habitat use, local movement, population dynamics, migration phenology and strategies, often using the latest technology in wildlife tracking and remote sensing. Based on the findings from these studies, long-term habitat quality monitoring, protected area boundary adjustment and integrated natural and artificial management are proposed to improve the habitats for migratory waterbirds. These efforts do not only contribute to nature conservation, but also to the restoration of wetland ecosystems on which humans depend. His latest research investigates the impact of renewable energy infrastructure on migratory birds and the ways to mitigate those impacts.

Jimmy has published in leading conservation journals, including Conservation Letters, Conservation Biology, and Biological Conservation. He has served as an editorial board member for Avian Research and Stilt, and an associate editor for Journal of Applied Ecology. He was appointed as a specialist by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China, Shenzhen Mangrove Wetlands Conservation Foundation, and Zhilan Foundation.

Jimmy has a B.S. (1st class honours) in Biological ecology from the University of New South Wales (Australia), an M.Sc in Ecology from Fudan University (China) and a Ph.D. in Ecology from Massey University (New Zealand). Before joining Duke Kunshan, he worked at the University of Queensland (postdoctoral research fellow), Deakin University (associate research fellow) and Southern University of Science and Technology (research assistant professor).

Dr. Jingbo Cui is a tenured Associate Professor of Applied Economics at the Division of Social Sciences, Co-Director at the Environmental Research Center, and Director of Graduate Studies for the International Master of Environmental Policy (iMEP) program at Duke Kunshan University, Adjunct Professor and Ph.D. Supervisor at the School of Economics and Management at Wuhan University.

Dr. Cui’s research centers on Environmental Economics, the Economics of Climate Innovation, and the Economics of Climate Change. His recent research has delved into intriguing topics such as the drivers and obstacles to low-carbon innovation, the economic and environmental impacts of China’s climate policy, and the identification and quantification of financial consequences of climate risks in China. His scholarly contributions have been published in top-tier academic journals, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Environmental and Resource Economics, Journal of Regional Science, The World Economy, and Energy Economics. He has been serving as an Associate Editor for Environment and Development Economics and a member of the editorial council at JAERE and JEEM, which are top journals in the field of environmental economics. His research projects on China’s Climate Policy and Low-Carbon Innovation have been funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (General Program, Junior Program, and Urgent Program). His research and perspectives on climate policy and energy transition have been covered by Nature Climate Change Highlight reports and world-leading media, such as Financial Times, Nature News in Focus, BBC Worklife, South China Morning Post, and others.

Before the current position at Duke Kunshan University, he was a Chu-Tian Junior Scholar from the Department of Education in Hubei Province, an Associate Professor at the School of Economics and Management at Wuhan University, a Post-doctoral Research Associate, and a visiting scholar at Iowa State University. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Iowa State University, an M.S. in economics from Wuhan University, and a B.S. in economics and mathematics from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China.

Paula Ganga is an Assistant Professor of Political Economy at Duke Kunshan University. Her research and teaching explore the economic consequences of illiberalism, the developmental impact of foreign aid, corruption, and the role of technology. She is currently working on a book manuscript that explores the connection between economic nationalism and populism in Europe. Her interest in environmental policy has led to research examining the environmental impact of the war in Ukraine and the role of foreign aid in the environmental transition in the Global South. After completing her Ph.D. at Georgetown University, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute, the Skalny Center for Polish and Central and Eastern European Studies at Rochester University, and a George F. Kennan short-term scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars.

Joseph Giacomelli’s work focuses on how environmental and scientific knowledge is created, contested, and sometimes transformed into actions that shape people’s lives. He is especially interested in climate history, environmental history, and the history of science. His book, Uncertain Climes: Debating Climate Change in Gilded Age America (University of Chicago Press, 2023), focuses on the political and cultural dimensions of late nineteenth-century climate change theories. In the book, he argues that contentious debates about human-induced climatic changes shaped not just environmental and scientific thought, but also broader political struggles over the future of American expansionism and capitalism. Joseph also enjoys learning about maps and the history of technology.

Dr. Coraline Goron obtained a double Ph.D. degree in Political Science from the University of Warwick and the Université Libre de Bruxelles under the aegis of the Erasmus Mundus GEM program. Before joining DKU, Coraline was a postdoctoral research fellow funded by the Wiener-Anspach Foundation at the University of Oxford China Centre.
Her research centers on environmental politics with a specific focus on China, both domestically and as an increasingly influential actor in global environmental governance. Her Ph.D. thesis received the Marthe Engelborghs-Bertels Prize for Sinology in May 2018. It traced the transformation of China’s power stem and environmental protection and analyzed their combined outcomes on the implementation of decarbonization policies. It draws on a vast corpus of Chinese-language documentation, as well as interviews with Chinese industry experts and policy stakeholders.

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. He is a recipient of Wachovia Environmental Award and Excellence in Refereeing from the American Geophysical Union.
Gu has a B.Sc. in environmental science from Nanjing University, an M.Sc. in environmental science from Sun Yat-sen University and a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. He served as a postdoc researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining Duke Kunshan, he held faculty positions at Appalachian State University and Beijing Normal University.

He Wumeng is an environmental economist whose research examines how institutions and public policy shape land use and conservation outcomes. His work focuses on environmental governance, spatial development, and the long-term interaction between natural systems and social institutions. Using empirical methods and spatial data, he studies how policy interventions influence environmental and economic change.

At Duke Kunshan University, he teaches environmental economics, environmental policy analysis, and climate change economics and policy. He also has a long-standing interest in the intellectual traditions of classical Chinese thought. He holds 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. Prior to joining Duke Kunshan, he served as assistant professor at Wuhan University.

His research focus is on the intersection of precision health and medicine, Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning and informatics, and motion and physiological signal sensing. His teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include Computer Organization and Programming, Introduction to Operating Systems, and Image Data Science.

He has published over 100 peer-reviewed publications and patented inventions. He has led transdisciplinary scientific projects in collaboration with researchers from diverse fields such as biomedical engineering, medicine, and nursing. For the nature of richness and high impact of the research topics he was involved in, his research results in a plethora of new knowledge in aspects ranging from innovative IoT sensing technology, closed-loop AI analytics methodology, optimized clinical decision-making, and just-in-time patient risk assessment.

He has a B.S (2007) in Electrical Engineering at Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, an M.S. (2010) in Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California, and a Ph.D. (2014) in Computer Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Before joining Duke Kunshan in 2021, he was an Associate Professor of Case Western Reserve University,  USA. (2014-2021)

Eunyu Kim\’s primary research interest lies in understanding how plants cope with environmental stresses to enhance crop resilience and improve agricultural productivity. Her work primarily focuses on regulating stress-responsive mechanisms and their applications in model plant systems such as Arabidopsis and rice, as well as crops like hot pepper and tomato.

Her research has been published in over 40 high-impact journals and has led to multiple international patents, including a U.S. patent. She has secured national and provincial research grants as a principal investigator, with funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF).

Kim earned her Ph.D. from Yonsei University in South Korea. After a brief postdoctoral training period, she served as a research professor at Yonsei University. Before joining Duke Kunshan University, she was a research associate professor at the Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences (CEMPS) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Shanghai.

His research focus is at the intersection of environmental management, environmental engineering, and sustainability science. He is especially interested in how we can sustainably transition our approaches to water management (e.g., reducing greenhouse gas emissions, enabling resource recovery, improving water security). His teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include water, energy and sustainability.
Lam has a B.Eng. in chemical and environmental engineering (with a minor in liberal studies), an M.Phil. in chemical and biomolecular engineering (energy technology concentration) from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and a Ph.D. from the University of Queensland. Before joining Duke Kunshan, he was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at Delft University of Technology (2018-20), and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Queensland (2017-18).

Epigenetic regulation involves modifying gene expression without altering the DNA sequence, and these changes can be inherited across cells and/or generations. However, the lethality of epigenetic mutants in animal models has limited research into the mechanisms underlying the maintenance of epigenetic modifications in response to environmental signals. To address the questions, the Lee lab is using Arabidopsis as a model plant, which is tolerant of epigenetic mutations. Lee lab uses various molecular and bioinformatic analysis, including large-scale transcriptome, small RNA seq, DNA methylome, and chromatin modification (ChIP seq) analysis, to investigate the mechanisms underlying epigenetic regulation, which are highly conserved in higher eukaryotes.

Dr. Binbin Li is the Associate Professor of Environmental Sciences at the Environmental Research Center at Duke Kunshan University. She holds a secondary appointment with the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. She focuses on the synergy between biodiversity conservation and sustainable development under climate change. Her research covers conservation planning to promote synergetic solutions to climate change mitigation and human health, One Health framework, endangered and endemic species conservation in China such as giant pandas, sustainable infrastructure building in the Belt and Road Initiative and bird collisions in urban environment. She promotes to use of innovative technology, market tools, citizen science, and policies to solve conservation problems and assist sustainable local community development.

 

Dr. Li has been awarded Wayfinder by National Geographic in 2025, and EC50 by Explorers Club as one of the world’s most inspiring explorers. She serves as the co-chair of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) WCPA-protected planet specialist group, and serves on the IUCN Species Survival Commission, World Commission on Protected Areas and the Commission on Prevention of Viral Spillover convened by Lancet and PPATS. She is the editor-in-chief of Integrative Conservation and associate editor of Frontiers of Ecology and Evolution. She also serves on the editorial board of Conservation Biology, Global Ecology and Conservation, Biodiversity Science and National Parks. Dr. Li is engaged in science communication and nature education. She has been awarded nature photographer of the Year in the Chinese National Geography China Wildlife Image and Video Competition in 2022. She is the founder of the China Anti-bird Collision Action Alliance, the largest citizen science project in China. She is also the board director of SilverLining Conservation Center, which aims to increase the capacity of storytelling for conservation practitioners and to change public behaviors using media instruments.

 

Dr. Li got her PhD in Environment from Duke University, M.S in Natural Resources and Environment from University of Michigan. and B.S in Life Sciences with a dual degree in Economics from Peking University.

Zuchuan’s research focus lies at the intersection of data science, statistics, machine learning and environmental science. His research has been published in leading academic journals including Nature, Nature Communications and Global Biogeochemical Cycles. He has been awarded the NASA Earth and space science fellowship and the WHOI postdoctoral scholarship. His teaching interests include data science, statistics, machine learning and environmental science. He has a B.Sc. from Wuhan University and a Ph.D. from Duke University.

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. He is a member of American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Society. Ma has a B.A. in physics for Peking University and a Ph.D. in climate dynamics from Harvard University. After receiving his Ph.D., he joined Columbia University as an Earth Institute Fellow.

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. in theological and religious studies from Cambridge University, and a Ph.D. in religious and theological studies from Boston University. Before joining Duke Kunshan, he was director of the School of Religion at Queen’s University, Canada.

Claudia’s scientific agenda is centered around identifying what works to helps us lead healthier and more sustainable lives. Her research program focuses on the effectiveness of behavioral interventions to promote healthy and sustainable living – eg. how to best promote energy savings, reduce food waste, increase cancer screening or blood donation. She translates behavioral science into practice to tackle these critical challenges, and to respond to calls for better informed policies. In order to do so, she uses a variety of methodological tools including (1) lab studies testing small-scale psychologically-driven interventions; (2) large field experiments testing how to scale-up behavioral interventions in natural settings; and (3) evidence-based policy evaluation, based on meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials and quasi-experiments. Claudia has a BSc degree in Social and Organizational Psychology and a MSc in Economics and Social Policy from the University of Lisbon, Portugal. She also holds a MSc in Decision Sciences and a PhD in Social Policy, both from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She has served a postdoctoral researcher to ETH-Zurich in Singapore, and New York University in Abu Dhabi.

His current research is at the interface of critical theory, Latin American studies and anthropology. His work explores political memory and the symbolic bases of citizenship, democracy and dictatorship in Latin America. He has also done long-term fieldwork in lowland Amazonia focusing on indigenous notions of mind, knowledge, and health. At Duke Kunshan, his teaching interests span medical and political anthropology, Latin American cultures and politics, migration and citizenship studies, and critical theory. Rodd has edited two special journal issues – International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society and Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research – and published book chapters in English, Spanish and French. His articles has appeared in anthropology and politics journals including Critique of Anthropology, Anthropology of Consciousness, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Journal of Latin American Religion, Democratic Theory, and Citizenship Studies. He served as the secretary of the Association of Iberian and Latin American Studies of Australasia (AILASA) from 2016 to 2020, and has twice co-convened the Australian Anthropological Society annual conference. Rodd has a B.A. (Hons) in history from the University of Western Australia, a B.A. in Spanish from Edith Cowan University, and a Ph.D. with distinction in socio-cultural anthropology from the University of Western Australia. Before joining Duke Kunshan, Rodd taught anthropology at James Cook University, Australia.

Her research focus is the bio-inspired smart materials with high performance and advanced functions, e.g., special wettability, anisotropic properties, and dynamic response. Her teaching interests at Duke Kunshan lie in materials and chemistry courses, including but not limited to materials mechanics, bio-inspired smart materials, integrated science, analytic chemistry, and inorganic chemistry.

She has published peer-review papers in leading academic journals including Advanced Materials, ACS Nano, Science Advances, and ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Her research work was featured in CNN, Boston Globe, Digital Trends, etc. and highlighted by U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL). Her work was invited to exhibit at ACC Smithsonian Creativity and Innovation Festival, National Museum of American History, and awarded the “Innovation Award” by Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology. The fog harps got fully patented by United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Dr. Shi has a B.S. and M.Eng. in applied chemistry from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a Ph.D. in engineering mechanics from Virginia Tech.

Dr. Annemieke van den Dool is Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy at Duke Kunshan University. Her research focuses on policymaking and implementation in China, particularly in the areas of health and environmental policy. She examines the role of various stakeholders in policymaking, analyzes the driving forces behind policy change, and assesses the design and content of public policies. In terms of environment-focused research, her current research topics include antimicrobial resistance, environmental pollution, community gardening, and bicycling. She has a multidisciplinary background with a B.A. in China Studies from Leiden University, a M.S. in Environmental Science and Policy from Lund University, and a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Amsterdam.

Her research focuses on environmental economic and health economics. She studies questions related to environmental regulations, firm behavior, and health impacts of pollution. Her current projects analyze pollution exposure inequity, location decisions of firms and families in response to environmental regulations and public pressure, and effect of environmental regulation on various health outcomes. She has several papers published in leading academic journals including the Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal Environmental Economics and Management, the Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, and Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economics.

Xiao holds a B.A. in accounting from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, an M.A in Economics from North Carolina State University, and receives her Ph.D. in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2019. She worked in Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University as a postdoctoral researcher from 2019 to 2021. Before joining DKU, she has worked as an assistant professor of economic at Hunan University.

His research focus is in plant physiological and ecological responses to environmental change. His teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include integrated science, biology and environmental science, especially lifecycle analysis and systems thinking.
He has directed environmental science research centers and academic programs at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Oregon State University and North Carolina State University. He also worked in research administration at the U.S. National Science Foundation.
Winner has B.A. and M.A. teaching degrees in biology from the Lewis and Clark College, Portland, an M.A. in biology from the University of South Dakota, and a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Calgary, Canada.

Yang’s research applies behavioral decision science to characterizing and communicating scientific results to inform risk-related decisions. More recently, she has been working on risk communication to better inform public health decisions, while her previous research focused on risk communication on advanced energy technologies. Her teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include health communication and decision making.

She received her Ph.D. degree (2017-21) from the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, where she also served as a postdoctoral research associate (2022). She received her M.S. in nuclear engineering and B.A. in English literature and journalism from Tsinghua University.

Junjie Zhang is a professor in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University and Director of the Initiative for Sustainable Investment at Duke Kunshan University. He founded and directed Duke Kunshan’s Environmental Research Center and International Master of Environmental Policy Program. Before that, he was an associate professor in the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. He was also a Volkswagen Visiting Chair in Sustainability in Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University. His recent research focuses on empirical issues in energy transition, climate change, and green finance. He has received funding from various sources, including scientific foundations, multilateral banks, corporations, financial institutions, and philanthropic foundations. He holds a B.S. from the Renmin University of China, a B.S. and an M.S. from Tsinghua University, and a Ph.D. from Duke University.

His research focus is the intersection of polymer, colloid, and nanoscience. He is especially interested in sustainable low-carbon solutions for industry, including but not limited to energy-saving catalysts, recyclable materials, plastic waste upcycling, and bio-based degradable materials. He is also interested in developing high-performance flexible electronics. He has had papers published in leading academic journals including Annual Review of Materials Research, Nanoscale, Carbon, ChemSusChem, Journal of Physical Chemistry.

His teaching interest at Duke Kunshan University includes polymer science, material science, and fundamental chemistry.

Tan has a B.Eng. in polymer material and an M.Eng. in material processing from Sichuan University. He holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from Oklahoma State University and completed his postdoctoral training at Texas A&M University. Before joining Duke Kunshan University, he was a research scientist at Texas A&M University and University of Delaware.

His research centers on urban & regional economics and health economics. He is particularly interested in applying causal inference methods to understand regional disparities shaped by demographic forces, including population aging and internal migration. At Duke Kunshan University, his teaching portfolio includes ECON101 Economic Principles, ECON204 Intermediate Macroeconomics, ECON310 Urban Economics, and POLECON490 Senior Seminars. He has also offered mini-term courses such as Wrong but Useful Models and Essentials of Making Investments.

His work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals including Review of Regional Studies, Asian Transport Studies, Global Health Research and Policy, and PLOS Medicine. He holds a BA in Economics from Shandong University and an MA in Population, Resource and Environmental Economics from Fudan University. He earned his PhD in Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics from The Ohio State University in 2018.

Dr. Zhang is an interdisciplinary geospatial scientist with expertise in spatial data science and digital city tools. Her research centers on urban sustainability, climate change adaptation, and public health. She particularly focuses on the impacts of urban 3D morphology and canopy changes on climate-smart and resilient urban planning, and health impact assessments to improve environmental justice and urban greening efforts. At Duke Kunshan, her teaching interests encompass applied environmental science and policy, data analytics, and geographical information science. She has been honored with the Gilbert F. White Environment and Society Fellowship and her work has been published in top-ranking journals including “Landscape and Urban Planning,” “Environmental Research Letters,” and “Landscape Ecology.” Dr. Zhang holds an M.S. in GIS for Development and Environment from Clark University and a Ph.D. in Geography from Arizona State University. Before joining Duke Kunshan, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Riverside, and served as a visiting assistant professor of environmental studies at Oberlin College, Ohio.