Alumni Update: Brian Chao '09

After graduating as an '09, I spent two years in China and Taiwan (partially funded by Dartmouth) studying Mandarin Chinese, after which I returned to the United States to work on Chinese science-and-technology issues in the District of Columbia metropolitan area. After three wonderful years in the nation's capital, where I was surrounded by Dartmouth friends, I moved to Philadelphia, Pa., for graduate school. I earned an AM and subsequently a PhD in Political Science at Pennsylvania, continuing to study issues surrounding naval power, great-power politics, and China's rise—all topics that I first pursued at the College. Enriched immeasurably by wonderful faculty, my Dartmouth experience served as the foundation for my career; I can trace all my professional endeavors and interests over the past dozen years back to my time in Silsby Hall. From getting Dartmouth library books through BorrowDirect to picking Prof. Wohlforth's brain on a dissertation chapter, the College even played an integral part in my research at Pennsylvania. Today, I am an assistant professor at the Naval War College, where I continue my research on Asia-Pacific geopolitics and naval affairs, and where I try to further the commitment to teaching that I saw embodied in my professors on the Hanover plain.