Jeffrey S. Lehman is the founding vice chancellor of NYU Shanghai (the first “Sino-American Joint University”). He was previously president of Cornell University, dean of the University of Michigan Law School, and founding dean of the Peking University School of Transnational Law.

Early in his career, he was a law clerk to Chief Judge Frank Coffin of the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and to Associate Justice John Paul Stevens of the US Supreme Court.

He has been Chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and co-convener of the US-China Trade Policy Working Group. He was a member of the American delegation to the China-US Legal Experts Dialogue during President Obama’s administration.

His honors include the National Equal Justice Award from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., lifetime membership in the American Law Institute, membership in the Council on Foreign Relations, and membership in the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

He is an honorary citizen of Shanghai and a recipient of China’s Friendship Award. In 2018, China named him one of the forty most influential foreign experts during the country’s first forty years of reform and opening up.