Christopher K. Tong is a China expert, open-source researcher, and tenured professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Dr. Tong holds degrees from Stanford University and the University of California, Davis, and was previously a postdoctoral fellow in East Asian studies at Washington University in St. Louis.
Dr. Tong researches Chinese culture, politics, science, and technology. His upcoming book from Oxford University Press discusses the emergence of modern science and ecological consciousness in Chinese and Western societies. He has been recognized as a Fulbright Scholar (2018-19), a Marjorie Harding Memorial Fellow by the Thoreau Society (2020-21), a China Studies Fellow by the American Council of Learned Societies (2021-22), and a William S. Willis Jr. Fellow by the American Philosophical Society (2023-24).
As a UMBC Cyber Fellowship Principal Investigator (2025), Dr. Tong also publishes on cybersecurity and geopolitics. His writing for the public has been distributed nationally and internationally by media outlets such as The Conversation, Associated Press, MSN, Yahoo, Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He volunteers for the National Language Service Corps and helps coordinate Chinese language teaching in the Department of Modern Languages, Linguistics & Intercultural Communication as well as the Asian Studies Program. As an enthusiast for languages and cultures, Dr. Tong speaks English, Mandarin Chinese (ILR 4+), Cantonese (DLI OPI 3), and German (DLPT 3) and has reading knowledge of French and Japanese.
For the UMBC Magazine, Dr. Tong shares his Fulbright experience in China and his research trip to Mongolia with Catalina Sofia Dansberger Duque.