I am delighted to join the CINA team as director effective December 11, and I am excited to build on the center’s achievements under my predecessors, Jim Jones and Anthony Stefanidis, to lead it into a new phase of growth and transition.
Like CINA itself, my career has focused on translating between academia and government. On one hand, I trained as a sociolinguist at the University of Michigan with a specialization in the languages and society of China, and built my research profile conducting sponsored projects for U.S. government stakeholders at University-Affiliated Research Centers (UARC) at the University of Maryland. On the other, I served for fifteen years in the Department of State, both as a Foreign Service Officer and civil servant, in a variety of policy and programming roles. As CINA director, I am eager to build relationships that advance both the missions of our sponsors and the mandates of George Mason University and our academic partners.
I have begun reaching out to CINA’s stakeholders to listen and learn about your perceptions of the center, what strengths we should build on, and your priorities for the future. With the holiday season upon us, many of these conversations will take place early in the new year; I look forward to sharing a more comprehensive vision for CINA’s next phase at our annual meeting in March.
– Brook