Maura Cunningham

From their website:

I first moved to China in 2005 to study Mandarin in Beijing. Fascinated by an ever-changing country, I spent most of the following decade bouncing back and forth between China and the United States. During those years, I spent the majority of my time in graduate school and eventually earned a Ph.D. in Chinese history at the University of California, Irvine in 2014. I also pursued my love of writing and travel, combining the two as frequently as I could. I’ve contributed to a number of publications, including the Wall Street Journal‘s China Real Time blog, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Ms. Magazine blog, and The TLS. Additionally, I possess extensive editorial experience, having worked at The China Beat, ChinaFile, the Journal of Asian Studies, Twentieth-Century China, and GradHacker. I currently co-edit the LA Review of Books China Blog with Jeff Wasserstrom.

As an academic, my research examines Chinese social and cultural history from the beginning of the 19th century through today, and I tend to emphasize the links between China’s past and present in both my scholarly and general-audience writing. I’m also deeply engaged in discussions about being an “alternative academic,” as someone who appreciates her graduate training but has never envisioned a life on the tenure track.

Now based in New York, I am a program officer at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, an organization that promotes constructive relations between the United States and China.