Susan Shirk

Susan L. Shirk is a research professor at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy, director emeritus of its 21st Century China Center, and director emeritus of IGCC. She served as director of IGCC from 1992 to 1997, and again from 2007 to 2012.

From 1997 to 2000, Shirk served as deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs, with responsibility for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mongolia.

Shirk founded in 1993 and continues to lead the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD), an unofficial “track-two” forum for discussions of security issues among defense and foreign ministry officials and academics from the United States, Japan, China, Russia, and the Koreas.

Before she joined the government, Shirk served as a member of the US Defense Policy Board, the Board of Governors for the East-West Center (Hawaii), the Board of Trustees of the US–Japan Foundation, and the Board of Directors of the National Committee on United States–China Relations. She is a member of the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations. She received her BA in political science from Mount Holyoke College, her MA in Asian studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and her PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.