Kevin ACKER

Kevin is a 2019 M.A. graduate of China studies and Economics at Johns Hopkins SAIS. He spent his first year at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, and has worked in international education and consulting. His research interests include the role of Chinese local governments in foreign policy, China's frameworks for South-South cooperation, and the impact of Chinese foreign investment on local economic outcomes. He holds a B.A. in Economics and China Studies from Binghamton University.

Vito AMENDOLAGINE

Vito Amendolagine is a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Foggia. His research is focused on international trade and development economics. He holds a MSc in Economics and Econometrics from the University of Essex, a PhD in Economics from the University of Bari, and a PhD in Economics from the University of Glasgow. He has working experience with UNIDO, London School of Economics, University of Pavia and Bari.

Pritish BEHURIA

Pritish Behuria’s research examines the politics of economic transformation under 21st century globalization. He completed his PhD in the Department of Development Studies at SOAS, University of London in 2015 (where he also worked as a Senior Teaching Fellow for two years). He then worked as an LSE Fellow in the Department of International Development at The London School of Economics and Political Science. He then won a competitive research fellowship in 2017 and has worked as a Hallsworth Research Fellow in Political Economy at the University of Manchester’s Global Development Institute since then. The bulk of his fieldwork experience has been undertaken in Rwanda, Ethiopia and India. However, he has also conducted over one month of fieldwork in Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Botswana, Mauritius and Tanzania. He is also a Research Associate at The University of Oxford Blavatnik School’s Global Economic Governance Programme and the University of Manchester’s Effective States and Inclusive Development Research Centre.

Yanning CHEN

Yanning Chen is a fourth-year Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins SAIS in International Development. Her research focuses on role of investment in the diffusion of renewable energy in Africa. She holds a M.A. from Boston University. She received a B.S. in International Political Economy from Georgetown University.

Peter GRINSTED

Peter Grinsted is Senior Economist at Development Reimagined (DR), an international development consultancy headquartered in Beijing, China. With over three years experience in China and Africa, Peter’s role at DR involves data and econometric analysis, report writing, as well as leading DR’s “Africa Reimagined” program of China market entry support for high-end, sustainable African brands. Prior to DR, Peter spent time with the China-Britain Business Council and the Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan. With degrees in Economics (at the University of Sheffield) and Engineering for International Development (at University College London, UCL), Peter has studied development, and in particular infrastructure projects like many of the PPPs China is involved in within Africa, from both equally important perspectives. He is fluent in English and speaks Chinese to a working proficiency.

Kofi GUNU

Kofi Gunu is a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where he is reading for an MPhil in International Relations. His research focuses on Sino-African trade and investment relations, particularly around facilitating sustainable industrialisation for mineral-rich African economies. Kofi previously worked in the Office of the Vice President of Ghana as a National Service Fellow, supporting the Ghanaian government on a US$2 billion resource-financed infrastructure project with China. He also served on the Asia Technical Committee at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Prior to working in government, Kofi interned with both the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and with U.S. Senator Mike Rounds in Washington D.C. He has also worked with Accra-based Africa Foresight Group. Kofi received a BA in Political Science from Augustana University and was a Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua University, where he received a master’s degree in Global Affairs & Public Policy.

Yufan HUANG

Yufan Huang recently graduated from Johns Hopkins SAIS with an M.A. in International Relations and he is now a Ph.D. student at Cornell University. From 2014 to 2017, he was a researcher for the New York Times Beijing Bureau, focusing on China-related foreign and defense affairs. He has an B.A. in International Politics from Renmin University of China.

Zhengli HUANG

Zhengli Huang holds a PhD from Tongji University, Shanghai. She has worked extensively on China-Africa studies, and her international academic experience includes working as a Research Associate at the University of Sheffield in the U.K. and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She was also a Luce Visiting Scholar in Trinity College in the U.S.. Over the years she has accumulated rich fieldwork experience through working in UN-Habitat’s slum upgrading projects, as Project Manager in building a school in Nairobi’s informal settlements, and being involved in various research projects on Chinese infrastructure development in Africa. Her work focuses on African urbanization and China’s impact on urban development, especially on housing, urban governance and development finance, particularly covering Ethiopia and the East African Region. She is currently based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Jonathan MUNEMO

Jonathan Munemo is an Associate Professor of Economics at Salisbury University. He earned his PhD in Economics from West Virginia University in 2005. Jonathan is an applied econometrician whose primary areas of interest include international trade, development finance, business regulations, and entrepreneurship. His most recent research examines the impact of startup regulations and institutional quality on the level of new business activity and it is published in the Journal of Regulatory Economics.

Marvellous NGUNDU

Marvellous Ngundu is a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. His research interests include China’s economic activities in Africa as well as Growth and Development issues affecting sub-Sahara Africa. In his Ph.D. dissertation, he examines the Growth and Development effects of FDI in Africa, with major focus on FDI from China and Africa’s traditional investors (US and EU). Marvellous graduated in 2015 with a Mcom in Financial Economics from Great Zimbabwe University (Zimbabwe).

Keyi TANG

Keyi Tang is a second-year Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins SAIS in international development. Her research focuses on the comparative political economy of development, with a focus on China-Africa engagement. Her work on impact evaluation of China-financed hydropower infrastructure in Ghana has been recently published on the journal Energy Policy. She holds an M.A. in international studies from the Hopkins-Nanjing Center and a B.A. in English Language and Literature from Nanjing University.

Henry TUGENDHAT

Henry Tugendhat is a Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins SAIS and a consultant at the World Bank’s Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment team. Henry specializes in Chinese telecoms investments and financing in Africa and has conducted fieldwork in Kenya and Nigeria. His work has been published in the Guardian, World Development and the China Africa Research Initiative. Henry lived and worked in China for three years and holds a M.Sc. from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and a B.A. in Modern Chinese and Spanish from the University of Leeds. He was previously a Research Officer at the Institute of Development Studies analyzing Chinese and Brazilian agricultural engagements in Africa. Henry speaks fluent Mandarin, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Julia VOO

Julia Voo is the Research Director for the Belfer Center’s China Cyber Policy Initiative. Voo leads the Center's US-China: Controlling Confrontation in Cyberspace project, a Track II dialogue with the China Institute for International Strategic Studies and she leads the Belfer Center's Cyber Power Index team. Her areas of research include the Digital Silk Road, industrial policy, and technical standards for strategic technologies. Voo is concurrently pursuing a PhD in Political Science at Birmingham University, UK. A 2019 graduate of Harvard Kennedy School's Master in Public Administration program, Voo served earlier at the British Embassy Beijing where she covered China's cyber and artificial intelligence policy from a commercial perspective, technical standards, and other trade policy issues. She lived in Beijing for seven years with stints at the EU Delegation to China, Carnegie-Tsinghua Centre for Global Policy, and she spent time at the UK's Cabinet Office.

Hong ZHANG

Hong Zhang is a PhD candidate in Public Policy at Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University. Her dissertation re-conceptualizes China’s engagement in international development through the theoretical lens of developmental state. She argues that such engagement can be understood as the international extension of China’s developmental state, in which the state actively mobilizes and integrates resources in pursuit of structural economic transformation both domestically and internationally. Specifically, she studies China’s state-owned enterprises and economic bureaucracies as key instruments of the developmental state. She also studies the cases of Pakistan, Myanmar, and Cambodia to understand the institutional impact of China’s development engagements. Hong has a MSc in Economic Sociology from London School of Economics and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Renmin University of China. Before pursuing the PhD, she worked as an international reporter for China’s Caixin Media.