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Robert Barnett

An expert on modern Tibet, Barnett is a research scholar and adjunct professor. His book, Lhasa: Streets with Memories (2006), examines the collective memory hidden in the geography of Tibet's capital city. From 1987-1998, Barnett was director of an independent Tibet news and research project in London. He has also worked as a journalist for the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong). His most recent publication, Thunder from Tibet, was published in the New York Review of Books in May 2008.

Casey Brown

As a specialist in climate risk and water resource management in developing countries, Brown is a research scientist at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society. He is also conversant on water management policy as it relates to poverty reduction and economic development.

Ann Cooper

Ann Cooper is an award-winning journalist and foreign correspondent with more than 25 years of radio and print reporting experience. An expert on press freedom, Cooper was most recently the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, one of the world's leading press freedom advocacy groups. She is a current professor of journalism at the Graduate School of Journalism.

Patrick L. Kinney

With a background in research and teaching on the human health impacts of air pollution, specifically the impacts of motor vehicle pollution in urban areas, Kinney is an associate professor Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health.

Dorothy Ko

Specializing in China's cultural history from the 17th century to the present, with a focus on the everyday lives of women, Ko is a professor of history at Barnard College. She works at the intersections of anthropology, history, and women's studies. Ko's book Every Step A Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet, published in 2001, shattered the popular conception of footbinding as a tool to oppress women and demonstrated that it was instead a source of female identity, purpose, pride, and power

Benjamin L. Liebman

Liebman is a professor of law and directs the Center for Chinese Legal Studies at Columbia Law School. His current research focuses on the role of the media in the Chinese legal system, on Chinese tort law, and on the evolution of China's courts and legal profession. Prior to joining the Columbia faculty in 2002, Liebman was an associate in the London and Beijing offices of the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell.

Lydia Liu

Both a Guggenheim Fellow and a National Humanities Center Fellow, Liu is a professor of Chinese language, culture and comparative literature. She is the author of The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making (2004). She will be in Beijing from August 1-12.

Xiabo Lu

An expert on Chinese politics, East Asian political economy and comparative politics, Lu is a professor of political science at Barnard and Columbia. His research covers post-socialist political economies, political corruption and good governance, the politics of regulation and government-business relations. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Committee of 100, and the National Committee on US-China Relations. He will be in Beijing from August 2-12.

Andrew Nathan

With teaching and research of Chinese politics and foreign policy, the comparative study of political participation and political culture, and human rights, Nathan is a professor of political science. Among numerous memberships, he is co-chair of Human Rights in China. His article "What the Olympics Reveal, and Conceal, About China," recently appeared as the cover story in The New Republic.

Anne Nelson

A specialist in media development, democratization and human rights, Nelson has written and lectured on Chinese media, and helped develop journalism programs in Beijing and Hong Kong. She is well versed in the development and use of social media in China and censorship issues in the country. She is an adjunct associate professor at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs.

Peter Schlosser

As an expert on the natural state of water bodies, the human impacts of the natural environment, and the possibility to design engineering solutions to problems caused by human impact, Schlosser is director of the Columbia Climate Center.

Joseph Stiglitz

A Nobel Prize laureate in economics, Stiglitz has published numerous articles on China's booming economy. His writings include China and the Global Economy: Challenges, Opportunities, Responsibilities, in China, Hong Kong and the World Economy (2006).

Robert Thurman

An expert in Tibetan Studies, Thurman holds the first endowed chair in Buddhist Studies in the West, the Jey Tsong Khapa Chair in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies. He recently published Why the Dalai Lama Matters, a political analysis of the vital role of the 14th Dalai Lama role in world peace.

Shang-Jin Wei

With research covering China as an emerging market, exchange rates, foreign direct investment, globalization, international finance and trade, and U.S.-China economic integration, Wei has published numerous books including The Globalization of the Chinese Economy (with J. Wen and H. Zhou, Edward Elgar, 2002). He is a professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School.

Tim Wu

Wu is an expert on telecommunications law and coined the term "Net Neutrality," the idea that the Internet should be free from discrimination by network providers. He is fluent in Mandarin, and ideas developed in his 2006 paper "The World Trade Law Of Internet Filtering" were used by a California free speech group to challenge China's Internet restrictions as a violation of global trade rules. Wu writes about copyright, international trade and the study of law-breaking. He is chairman of the board of Free Press, a nonpartisan media reform organization. He co-authored Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World and is a regular contributor to Slate magazine.

Guobin Yang

An expert on the sociology of China, as well as its media, social movements, social memory and voluntary associations, Yang is an associate professor at Barnard and Columbia. He recently published Re-Envisioning the Chinese Revolution: The Politics and Poetics of Collective Memories in Reform China (editor with Ching-Kwan Lee, 2007). He is in Hong Kong now through August 12.