Yuen Yuen Ang (洪源远) is the Alfred Chandler Chair Professor of Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University, based in Washington DC (on leave in 2024). She is an award-winning scholar, author, and teacher with a cross-disciplinary and global reach. She is the author of two acclaimed books, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016) and China’s Gilded Age (2020), both featured in The Economist and described as “game-changing.” She has received multiple awards across academic disciplines - political science, economics, and sociology - including the Theda Skocpol Prize for “impactful contributions to the study of comparative politics.” She also teaches at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University, in Beijing.
Ang is a Trustee of the Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company, a guardian of the Trust Principles of independence, integrity, and freedom from bias in news reporting. Apolitical (UK) named her among the world’s “100 Most Influential Academics in Government,” based on nominations from policymakers. Foreign Affairs, a premier outlet on US foreign policy, named her writing among the “Best of Books” and “Best of Print.” Ang’s analysis is featured in media outlets around the world, from the Global North to the Global South, including CGTN Visionaries, Die Zeit, Endgame, Freakonomics, Pengpai, The New York Times, to name a few. She advises multinational companies and global development agencies such as UNDP on development and innovation, China’s economy and its global role, and US-China relations. Ang’s distinctly multicultural background - as a native Singaporean, a professor trained and based in the US, and a China expert - informs her global thinking and commitment to building bridges across cultures.
Scholarship & Service
In 2023, Ang joined Johns Hopkins University, the SNF Agora Institute and Department of Political Science. She is the first named Chair at the Center for Economy & Society (CES). Both the Agora Institute and CES are established with the mission of addressing two defining challenges of the twenty-first century: revitalizing democracy and exploring alternatives beyond neoliberalism respectively. Ang holds a professorship named after Alfred Chandler, who pioneered the field of business history.
Professor Ang is the inaugural recipient of the Theda Skocpol Prize for “impactful contributions to the study of comparative politics,” awarded by the American Political Science Association. She has received book awards across multiple social sciences: the Peter Katzenstein Prize (political economy), Viviana Zelizer Prize (economic sociology), Douglass North Award (institutional economics), Alice Amsden Award (socio-economics), and Barrington Moore Prize (honorable mention, historical sociology). She is named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow for “high-caliber scholarship that applies fresh perspectives to the most pressing issues of our times.” She has served on many editorial and award committees, including at the American Political Science Association, American Sociology Association, Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, The China Quarterly, World Politics, etc.
Her new research is supported by the US National Science Foundation. Her latest projects examine whether China’s state-led innovation drive actually work, focusing on patents and government investment funds. Another project studies patterns of Chinese policy communication and lawmaking using automated text analysis. Her multicultural background helps her see and demonstrate that America and China, despite being competitors, share more similarities than most people think. See her essay “The Clash of Two Gilded Ages,” which was discussed at the Ezra Klein Show.
Teaching
Ang received the Tronstein Award for “innovative and outstanding teaching.” Ang received a Nexus grant to co-teach “China and the World,” with John Yasuda, at JHU’s Bloomberg Center in Washington DC. She also teaches at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University, in Beijing.
Public engagement
Ang is a public-facing scholar who believes that knowledge should be made accessible and widely shared, not only with elites, but anyone keen to learn a different perspective. In 2021, Apolitical named Ang among the world’s 100 Most Influential Academics in Government for “research that resonates with policymakers and has the potential to steer the direction of government.” Ang is frequently invited to speak to academic, business, civil society, and policy communities around the world. She has advised multilateral organizations including the UN and UNDP, national development agencies such as FCDO (UK), Norad (Norway), the US State Department, and companies engaged in China and emerging markets.
Ang has been profiled in outlets worldwide, including CGTN, Chosun, Die Zeit, Endgame, Freakonomics, Jiemian (界面), Pengpai (澎湃), The Ezra Klein Show, The New York Times. In addition to writing regularly for Project Syndicate (which reprints op-eds around the world in multiple languages), she also writes for major intellectual and media outlets such as Boston Review, Foreign Affairs, Pengpai, and The New York Times. In her public speaking, she aims to explain complex topics simply but without oversimplifying (see her TED-like talk “How the West & Beijing Got China Wrong.”)
