I am a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University's Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. I teach in the Department of Social Work and Social Administration at the University of Hong Kong. I hold a doctorate (DPhil) from the University of Oxford, where I explored reciprocal engagement between grassroots groups and governmental authorities and during which I carried out extensive fieldwork in rural China. My academic research and teaching is supplemented by seven years of experience with an international foundation running an institutional capacity building program for grassroots NGOs in China. Before joining HKU, I concluded a four-year research project on behalf of China’s leading government policy think-tank.

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In addition to teaching and research, I also serve on the boards of international development organizations and consult for nonprofits on a voluntary basis. I was raised in Macau during the 1980s, and then in Beijing for the next twenty-odd years. I was educated in China's public school system, then international school, before leaving Beijing for NYU, where I completed my undergraduate education. I have lived for brief periods in Central America and the Middle East, but have lived most of my life in China. I am fluent in Mandarin, Spanish and Farsi, speak basic Cantonese, and am currently studying Arabic.