Guoguang Wu is a Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, Stanford University. His research specializes in Chinese politics and comparative political economy, including, in China studies, elite politics, national political institutions and policy making mechanisms, transition from communism, the politics of development, and China’s search for its position in the world, and, in comparative political economy, transition of capitalism with globalization, the birth of capitalism in comparative perspectives, the worldwide rise of the economic state, and the emergence of human security on global agenda.

He is the author of four books, including China’s Party Congress: Power, Legitimacy, and Institutional Manipulation (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and Globalization against Democracy: A Political Economy of Capitalism After its Global Triumph (Cambridge University Press, 2017), editor or coeditor of six English-language volumes, and author or editor of more than a dozen of Chinese-language books. His academic articles have appeared in journals such as Asian Survey, China Information, China Perspectives, China Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Contemporary China, Pacific Review, Social Research, and Third World Quarterly. He also frequently contributes to The China Leadership Monitor. Some of his works have been translated and published in the languages of French, Japanese, and Korean.

Guoguang received a Ph.D. and a MA in politics from Princeton University (1995; 1993), a MA in journalism/political commentary from the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (1984), and a BA in journalism from Peking University (1981). During the late 1970s, he was among the sent-down youth in Mao's China, and a textile factory worker following the death of Mao. In the late 1980s, he worked in Beijing as an editorialist and a political commentator in Renmin ribao (The People's Daily) and, concurrently, a policy adviser on political reform and a speechwriter to the Zhao Ziyang leadership. His later appointments include: a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University (1989-1990), a Luce Fellow at the East Asian Institute of Columbia University (1990-91), and an An Wang Post-doctoral Fellow at the John King Fairbank Center of Harvard University (1995-96). Before joining Stanford in 2022, he taught at the University of Victoria in Canada and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Currently he is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for China Analysis of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Heather Rahimi has worked within both the private and public sector of international education promoting cross-cultural exchange  and supporting students' studies abroad. Her passion for international education was first sparked studying abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina while completing her B.A. in Spanish and Anthropology from Northern Arizona University. Since then, she has jumped on any opportunity to travel and learn more about different cultures around the world. In addition to travels throughout the Middle East and Europe, she also spent time in Peru on an archaeological dig and a semester in South Korea working in student affairs at the University of Utah Asia Campus. Heather speaks fluent Spanish and holds a Master of Arts in International Education Management from Middlebury Institute of International Studies. 

Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He was the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow from 2010 through 2015 and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford in 2009.

From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Fingar served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2000-01 and 2004-05), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001-03), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994-2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-94), and chief of the China Division (1986-89). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control.

Fingar is a graduate of Cornell University (A.B. in Government and History, 1968), and Stanford University (M.A., 1969 and Ph.D., 1977 both in political science). His most recent books are From Mandate to Blueprint: Lessons from Intelligence Reform (Stanford University Press, 2021), Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence Analysis and National Security (Stanford University Press, 2011), The New Great Game: China and South and Central Asia in the Era of Reform, editor (Stanford University Press, 2016), Uneasy Partnerships: China and Japan, the Koreas, and Russia in the Era of Reform (Stanford, 2017), and Fateful Decisions: Choices that will Shape China’s Future, co-edited with Jean Oi (Stanford, 2020). His most recent article is, "The Role of Intelligence in Countering Illicit Nuclear-Related Procurement,” in Matthew Bunn, Martin B. Malin, William C. Potter, and Leonard S Spector, eds., Preventing Black Market Trade in Nuclear Technology (Cambridge, 2018)."