Robert Daly is Director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States. Before joining the Wilson Center, he was Director of the Maryland China Initiative at the University of Maryland, a position he held since 2007. From 2001 to 2007, he was American Director of the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies, in Nanjing, China. Daly began work in U.S.-China relations as a diplomat with the United States Information Agency from 1989 to 1991, after which he taught Chinese at Cornell.
From 1992 to 1999, he worked on television projects in China as a host, actor, and writer, and helped to produce Chinese-language versions of Sesame Street and other Children's Television Workshop programs. During that same period, he directed the Syracuse University China seminar and served as a commentator on U.S.-China relations and Chinese affairs for several U.S. and Chinese media outlets. In 2000 and 2001, he served as American Director of the U.S.-China Housing Initiative. Daly is a regular commentator on current affairs for the Chinese service of the Voice of America.