MIT will kick off a new monthly lecture series called the China Forum with a May 14 talk by Yingyi Qian, dean of the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University and professor of economics at UC Berkeley. Qian will speak about China's recent economic transformation.
The China Forum is part of a broader MIT effort to look at new ways of fostering ties with China. A new China strategy working group, headed by CSAIL Director and Professor Victor Zue and composed of faculty and staff with interests in and knowledge of greater China, is charged with identifying new initiatives and collaborations that MIT might launch with China in the coming years.
"MIT has a long history of involvement with China and has attracted top Chinese students to MIT since the beginning of the 20th century," commented Professor Philip S. Khoury, associate provost and head of strategic planning for international education and research. "We want to figure out what MIT's future engagement with China might look like, and what kinds of research and educational programs we might want to emphasize."
Qian was born in Beijing and holds degrees from Tsinghua University, Harvard, Yale and Columbia. He is a research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research and the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan Business School, a fellow at the Chinese Economists Society (USA), and a nonresident senior research fellow at the Stanford Center for International Development. His main research areas include comparative economics, institutional economics, development economics, economics of transition and the Chinese economy.
The May 14 lecture is from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. in The Stata Center, Room G449. Refreshments will be served starting at 1:45 p.m. For additional information, contact Vicky Palay in CSAIL, at palay@csail.mit.edu or by phone at 617-253-8924.
China Forum lectures will continue on a monthly basis, beginning in September 2008.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on May 7, 2008 (download PDF).
