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.

Ivan Willis Rasmussen is an Associate Professor of Practice in Political Science at NYU Shanghai. Prior to joining NYU Shanghai, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Government at Hamilton College and a Research Fellow with the International Security Program at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center.
His research has appeared in the Asian Journal of Public Affairs and the Chinese Yearbook of International Law and Affairs with a co-authored book, At the Dawn of Belt and Road: China in the Developing World (RAND Report). Dr. Rasmussen has taught and researched at a variety of institutions including Hamilton College, Tufts University, Harvard Kennedy School, Boston College, and Renmin Daxue (People’s University in Beijing). He previously worked for the US Department of State, Duke University/Gates Foundation, and the RAND Corporation. Dr. Rasmussen is a member of the American Political Science Association, International Studies Association, and Association of Asian Studies along with acting as a reviewer for various journals. More recently, Dr. Rasmussen was named to the third cohort of Mansfield-Luce Asia Scholars Network and received the Teaching Excellence Award at NYU Shanghai.