Director, DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group China Practice.
Lucy Best is a Director in DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group’s China Practice, where she advises clients in the healthcare, technology, and agricultural sectors on regulatory and geopolitical developments in China and Taiwan. Previously, she was a Research Associate at the Council on Foreign Relations, focusing on Chinese foreign policy and domestic politics, and a Contributor for the research service Trivium China, where she profiled elite Chinese political leaders. In 2022, she received a Blakemore Freeman Fellowship to study Mandarin at National Taiwan University’s International...
Venture Partner, Farron, Augustine & Alexander LLC; Reserve Naval Officer, United States Indo-Pacific Command.
Alan Y.C. Cheng is Venture Partner at Farron, Augustine & Alexander LLC, a Silicon Valley-based venture fund where he focuses on investments in early-stage technology companies. Alan is also serving in the United States Indo-Pacific Command as a reserve naval officer.
In his civilian career, before venture investing, Alan was Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at House Doctor, a telemedicine software company bringing medical doctors online for remote medical consultations over smartphone. Prior to technology entrepreneurship, he worked at Morgan Stanley in investment banking...
Project Lead and Senior Researcher, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
Heiner Nian-Kang Janus is a Project Lead and Senior Researcher at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) in Bonn, Germany, where he leads the institute’s research project on the effectiveness of development policy.
His research focuses on bureaucratic politics in development, international development cooperation, and development effectiveness. Bridging rigorous academic inquiry with policy relevance, his work examines how international actors learn, adapt, and coordinate to achieve development outcomes. He has published extensively in leading peer-reviewed...
Adjunct Senior Fellow, Technology and National Security Program, Center for a New American Security.
Elsa B. Kania is an Adjunct Senior Fellow with the Center for a New American Security's Technology and National Security Program and a 2025 fellow with the Penn Project on the Future of U.S.-China Relations. Dr. Kania received her MA and PhD in Political Science from Harvard University’s Department of Government, and she is also a graduate of Harvard College (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa). Her research focuses on China’s military strategy, command capabilities, defense innovation, and emerging technological developments, as well as cross-Strait security and deterrence challenges. Dr....
Assistant Professor, Palacký University Olomouc; Co-Director, Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS).
Kristina Kironska is an interdisciplinary academic working at the intersection of international relations, human rights, and Asian studies. She has extensive experience in research, election observation, and human rights advocacy. She spent several years in Taiwan, combining academic work, public-facing human rights activities with Amnesty International Taiwan, and lecturing at the University of Taipei. She is now an Assistant Professor at Palacký University in Olomouc in Czechia, where she leads the Global Taiwan Chair and the Myanmar Studies Center. She also serves as...
Senior Policy Officer, Innovation Lab, Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space, Germany.
Alexander Kleibrink works as a senior policy officer on technology transfer at Germany’s Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space. For more than 15 years, he has worked at the intersection of innovation, digitalization, and regional development in academia and public policy. He previously led a team on innovation and local development at the European Commission and served as an adviser at Germany’s Ministry of Finance. Earlier roles include research appointments with the German Research Foundation–funded group "The Transformative Power of Europe" and fellowships with the...
Senior Associate, China Warfighting Initiative, Marine Corps War College.
Drake Long is a Senior Associate with the China Warfighting Initiative, Marine Corps War College (MCWAR), where he assists in research, teaching, and managing contributions to the China Military Studies Review – the War College’s newest academic journal on the PRC military – to support the US Marine Corps and wider professional military education community. He’s published chapters in three separate edited volumes concerning Law of the Sea and territorial disputes in the Indo-Pacific, and is currently researching and working on a book on international seabed issues. Additionally, he’s...
Senior Advisor, Division of Global HIV and Tuberculosis, Center for Disease Control (CDC), United States.
Noah Metheny is a public servant with nearly two decades of experience in global health development and diplomacy, human rights, and health equity. He currently serves at the US CDC as a Senior Advisor, and previously worked for more than six years at the USAID in the Office of HIV, where his portfolio focused on global health equity, human rights, and multilateral health diplomacy.
Noah also served for nearly three years at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Earlier in his career, he spent almost a decade in civil society leadership roles, including as...
Senior Program Manager, Perry World House, University of Pennsylvania.
Thomas J. Shattuck is a Senior Program Manager at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House. His research focuses on cross-Strait relations, Taiwanese and Chinese domestic and foreign affairs, Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, and the US role in the Indo-Pacific. He has taught graduate- and undergraduate-level courses on Philippine foreign policy and Taiwan’s foreign policy and energy security. He was a 2024-25 non-resident WSD-Handa Fellow at the Pacific Forum and a 2024-25 non-resident Research Fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point. Shattuck is a Non-Resident Research...
Assistant Professor, Chinese Politics; Academic Lead, Institute of International Relations (IDIS) China Program, Department of European and International Studies, Panteion University.
Konstantinos Tsimonis is Assistant Professor in Chinese Politics and Academic Lead of the Institute of International Relations (IDIS) China Program at the Department of European and International Studies, Panteion University. He is also an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at University College London and an affiliate of the Lau China Institute at King’s College London where he previously served as a tenured faculty member. Konstantinos first went to Beijing in 2003 and spent a total of five years studying mandarin and working. During his doctoral studies at the School of Oriental and...
