Team
Empiricism and objectivity is one half of Project Asia's strength. The other half is its people. Project Asia's analysts bring diverse experiences and critical skills to their craft. All have lived, studied, or worked in the region. Some have had extensive careers in the Foreign Service, in the military, or in policy making positions in the U.S. Government. Many have the critical language skills necessary to understand the issues at hand from a regional perspective.
Dr. David M. Finkelstein is the director of Project Asia. He can be reached through Tamara Hemphill, 703.824.2106 or at finked@cna.org.
China Specialists at The CNA Corporation
David M. Finkelstein is the Director of Project Asia and The CNA Corporation's China Studies Center. He received his Ph.D. in Chinese history from Princeton University and studied Mandarin at Nankai University in Tianjin, China. A long-time student of Chinese and Asian affairs, he is widely published. His 1993 historical monograph, From Abandonment to Salvation: Washington's Taiwan Dilemma, 1949-50 (GMU Press), was hailed in Presidential Studies Quarterly as "blazing a new trail" and "will take an important place in the literature of U.S.-China relations in the mid-20th Century." He is co-editor of China's Leadership in the 21st Century: The Rise of the Fourth Generation (M.E. Sharpe, 2002), Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience Since 1949 (M.E. Sharpe, 2003), China's Revolution in Doctrinal Affairs: Recent Trends in the Operational Art of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (CNA, 2005), and Civil-Military Relations In Today's China: Swimming In A New Sea (M.E. Sharpe, June 2006). A retired U.S. Army officer, Finkelstein is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College, and the Army War College. He has held command and staff positions at the platoon, company, battalion, and Major Army Command levels. He also held significant China-related positions at the Pentagon as an advisor to the Secretary of Defense and Chairman, JCS in addition to serving on the faculty at West Point, where he taught Chinese history.
Maryanne Kivlehan-Wise is the Deputy Director of Project Asia. Her research interests include: Chinese politics and foreign policy, China's media reforms, South China Sea and ASEAN issues, Chinese maritime law, and China's new generation of leaders. She is the co-editor of China's Leadership in the 21st Century: The Rise of the Fourth Generation, and the author of chapters in several edited volumes addressing Chinese security issues. She completed her undergraduate work at the State University of New York at Buffalo, holds an MA in Security Policy Studies from the Elliott School of Foreign Affairs at The George Washington University, and is a graduate of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies, as well as Capital Normal University in Beijing, where she studied Mandarin. Before joining The CNA Corporation, she worked for an international nonprofit organization directing projects on Chinese and Mongolian affairs. She also spent time in Bosnia working with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in support of the 1997 municipal elections.
Kenneth W. Allen is a retired U.S. Air Force officer with many years of analytic work on China. He is one of the nation's foremost specialists on the PLA Air Force and Naval Aviation. Formerly the Assistant Air Attaché to China during the Tiananmen crisis, he is honored in DIA's Defense Attaché Hall of Fame. His extensive service abroad includes tours in China, Taiwan, Japan, and Berlin. A Chinese linguist, he holds an MA in International Relations from Boston University. As an instructor at the Joint Military Intelligence College, Allen taught courses and served as an advisor to newly selected U.S. military attachés. He is the author of innumerable articles and three major monographs on Chinese military affairs, including China's Foreign Military Relations. Allen authored the seminal English-language monograph on the PLA Air Force that remains the cornerstone for research on the Chinese air forces.
Collins Alt holds a BA in International Affairs from the Elliot School of International Affairs at The George Washington University and studied Mandarin at the Beijing Language and Culture Institute. Prior to joining The CNA Corporation, he was involved in the management of U.S. government grants to the Chinese government for infrastructure and trade capacity building projects while at the U.S. Trade and Development Agency. In addition to Chinese foreign and security policy, Alt maintains an interest in trends on the mainland that include government control of information technology, modern infrastructure capacity, trade and transportation security capabilities, international business transactions and the insurance market. He is currently pursuing an MBA at the University of Maryland.
James Bellacqua holds a BA in East Asian Studies from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon and is currently pursuing his MBA at American University. Prior to joining the CNA Corporation, Bellacqua served as a senior Chinese media analyst and linguist for the Foreign Broadcast Information Service examining PRC media treatment of Chinese domestic politics and legal affairs. He has also worked for CNN's bureau in Beijing. Having lived, worked, studied, and traveled extensively throughout the People's Republic of China for several years, he speaks, reads, and writes Mandarin Chinese fluently. Bellacqua is also a graduate of the Johns Hopkins-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies and has studied Mandarin Chinese in Guangxi and Heilongjiang provinces. His numerous research interests include Chinese internal security, media reform, and PRC elite leadership dynamics.
Thomas J. Bickford holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining The CNA Corporation, he was an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. He was also Associate Director of the Wisconsin Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies and a member of UW Oshkosh's International and Environmental Studies program. He is the author of several articles and papers on the PLA and civil-military relations in China. His research interests include Chinese foreign policy and comparative civil-military relations in Leninist and post-Leninist eras.
Dennis J. Blasko, Senior Associate, served 23 years in the U.S. Army as a tactical and strategic Military Intelligence Officer and Foreign Area Officer specializing in China. Blasko served as an Army Attaché in Beijing from 1992-1995 and in Hong Kong from 1995-1996. He also served in infantry units in Germany, Italy, and Korea. Blasko later worked in Washington at the Defense Intelligence Agency, Headquarters Department of the Army (Office of Special Operations), and at the National Defense University War Gaming and Simulation Center. Blasko is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and the Naval Postgraduate School. He has written numerous articles and chapters on the Chinese military and defense industries and is the author of The Chinese Army Today: Tradition and Transformation for the 21st Century (Routledge, December 2005).
Dean Cheng is a respected specialist of Chinese security affairs—especially technology issues—with over a decade of continuous experience in government, academe, and research institutes. He is widely recognized as one of the few specialists in the U.S. on the Chinese space program. He received his undergraduate degree in politics from Princeton University and did graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Formerly a senior analyst at SAIC, he supported the U.S. Army's Quadrennial Defense Review process by developing database and analytic models. As a senior analyst of China at the U.S. Congress's Office of Technology Assessment, Cheng developed deep expertise about the Chinese defense industrial complex. Fluent in Mandarin and conversant with high-end technologies as well as political-military issues, he is widely published in various professional journals and edited volumes on Chinese security affairs.
Peter Cugley is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He has previously worked as an organic chemist and is a patent holder for his work on a novel sunscreen polymerization. He has worked as a manager at several Sino-U.S. joint ventures in the northeastern cities of Dalian and Shenyang, and studied Chinese for two years at Liaoning University in Shenyang. After returning from China, Cugley spent three years as a researcher and translator in the China Branch at Voice of America in Washington D.C.
Larry Ferguson graduated Magna Cum Laude from Boston University, with dual degrees in Chinese Studies and Ancient Latin & Greek. He has studied Mandarin in Beijing, at Capital Normal University, as well as at Boston University. Prior to joining The CNA Corporation, Ferguson spent significant time in China as a student, teacher, intern, and both a public and private sector professional. He has worked at the American Embassy in Beijing, for an American online marketing firm in Beijing, and interned at Microsoft's Beijing research laboratory. Ferguson possesses valuable language skills and on-the-ground knowledge of Beijing's political, commercial, and cultural arenas. In addition to PRC defense and security affairs, Ferguson's research interests include domestic stability and provincial and municipal governance in China.
Sherwood (Woody) Goldberg, Senior Advisor for Asian Affairs, is a graduate of Dickinson College and holds an MA in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Juris Doctor from the Temple University School of Law. His lifelong experiences in Asia and beyond encompass expertise in diplomatic, commercial, military, and legal endeavors. Among his many positions, Goldberg served as Chief of Staff to Alexander Haig during the latter's tenure as Secretary of State, as a Special Assistant to the President and COO of United Technologies, and as an advisor on domestic and international issues at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. As the first Managing Director of Worldwide Associates, Inc., he focused on advancing U.S. corporate interests around the world. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Dickinson College; the Board of Visitors of the College of Liberal Arts, Temple University; and a member of the D.C. Veterans' Advisory Board. In April 2001, he was appointed by the Acting Secretary of the Army as the Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army for Washington, D.C (CASA). Mr. Goldberg has traveled extensively throughout Asia and has deep, first-hand knowledge of Chinese and Asian political, security, and commercial affairs. Throughout his many years of travel to China in government and business he met multiple times with Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and a host of other national and provincial-level PRC elite. A retired Colonel (U.S. Army Reserves), he spent nearly three decades on Active and Reserve duty, including tours in Vietnam and as an instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Daniel M. Hartnett earned his MA in Asian Studies from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University. He is also a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (BA, Chinese Language & Literature) and studied advanced Mandarin at the Beijing Language and Cultural University. Prior to joining the CNA Corporation, Mr. Hartnett provided support to the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Agency in negotiating with the PRC a Memorandum of Understanding concerning nuclear nonproliferation issues. In addition to proliferation issues, his research interests include Chinese military affairs and PRC foreign policy.
Tamara Hemphill is the Program Coordinator for Project Asia and The CNA Corporation's China Studies Center. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, she graduated Magna Cum Laude from George Mason University. Her areas of academic interest include the history of the migration of diseases and their impact on social systems, the socio-cultural dynamics of insurgencies in Southeast Asia, and the influence of the environment on the development of culture and social institutions. Prior to joining the CNA Corporation, Hemphill supported research on international security and national defense issues at the RAND Corporation where she focused on homeland security initiatives, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism.
Heidi Holz is a graduate of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service where she studied Chinese and East Asian history. She has studied Mandarin Chinese in Beijing at Peking University and Tsinghua University. While living in China Ms. Holz taught English at various schools and appeared as a regular guest on Chinese-language talk shows. Her research interests are focused on health issues in China: specifically the social, political, and structural impacts of disease in Chinese society. Prior to joining The CNA Corporation, she worked as a bio defense analyst and China specialist with the Division of Integrated Bio Defense at Georgetown University's Imaging Science and Information Systems Center, where she analyzed the frequency and causality of infectious diseases in various parts of China. An accomplished linguist, Ms. Holz was previously a staff member at the Voice of America’s Mandarin Service, where she wrote programming in both Chinese and English, to include broadcast programs for teaching English to VOA's Chinese audience.
Alison Kaufman holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, with a focus on Chinese political philosophy. Prior to joining CNA, she worked for the World Bank's China program in Washington and at China Radio International in Beijing. She has also worked as a subject matter expert on Chinese affairs for a well known consultancy. Kaufman studied Chinese at Capital Normal University in Beijing and at Taiwan National University in Taipei. Her research interests include US-China relations and Chinese political ideologies.
Peter Mackenzie holds a Master's Degree in Public Policy and Administration from Columbia University and a Bachelor's Degree in Asian Studies from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Prior to joining the CNA Corporation, Mackenzie worked as a consultant for the National Committee on United States-China Relations, researching the interaction between foreign policy think tanks in both countries. He previously worked for the International Republican Institute (IRI), first with IRI's China program, where he focused on village elections and the professionalization of Chinese legislative staff, and later as the director of IRI's East Africa office in Nairobi, Kenya. He also worked on the Asia program at the Atlantic Council of the United States and coordinated the Council's Senior Fellows Program. After college, he completed a yearlong teaching fellowship at the Sun Yat-sen University of Medical Sciences in Guangzhou and during graduate school he conducted an internship at the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu. Having lived, worked, studied, and traveled extensively throughout the People's Republic of China for several years, he has an excellent grasp of spoken and written Mandarin Chinese. Mackenzie also studied Mandarin Chinese at Capital Normal University in Beijing and the Harbin Institute of Technology. His numerous research interests include Chinese political reform and social change, PRC elite leadership dynamics, US-China Track II diplomacy and China-Africa relations.
Julia Rosenfield is a specialist in Chinese political-military affairs and maritime issues. A graduate of Middlebury College, she has studied Chinese at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies, the Harbin Institute of Technology, and Middlebury College's renowned intensive summer language program. She is also an alumna of the Williams-Mystic Maritime Studies Program (Mystic, Connecticut), where her interests in both maritime trade and Chinese affairs culminated in the writing of "The American China Trade: Beginnings, Development, and the Shanghai Experience". Rosenfield is particularly interested in Chinese maritime policies, Chinese social, economic and legal developments, as well as contemporary and historical gender and minority issues. Prior to joining the CNA Corporation, she worked as the China Program Officer for CET Academic Programs, and as a paralegal specializing in civil rights and antitrust litigation.
Suzanne Ross specializes in Hong Kong and Mongolian affairs. She is a graduate of the University of Central Florida, and holds a Master of Social Science degree from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Prior to joining CNA, Ms. Ross served as the Country Director for Hong Kong and Mongolia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, International Security Affairs. She provided strategic planning and support to senior Department of Defense officials in the formulation of defense and security policies in East Asia, with a focus on Hong Kong and Mongolia. Ms. Ross has also served as Special Assistant to the Acting Secretary of the Army, and as a Research Assistant on the Senate Committee on Armed Services.
Fred Vellucci holds an MA in Asian Studies from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University. Prior to joining CNA, Mr. Vellucci worked as an analyst focusing on Chinese domestic political reform and East Asian security for a number of organizations in Washington, D.C. including the National Bureau of Asian Research, Intellibridge Corporation and the Sigur Center for Asian Studies. He studied Mandarin Chinese at the Beijing Institute of Technology, Capital Normal University in Beijing, and most recently at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, China. In addition to Chinese foreign policy and East Asian security affairs, Mr. Vellucci's research interests include domestic political reform in China and its implications for continued social stability and one-party rule.
To arrange an interview:
Contact the Office of Communications and Public Affairs
Noel Gerson
703.824.2758; 703.855.1165; gersonn@cna.org
