Christopher K. Tong is an Associate Professor tenured at the University of Maryland in Baltimore County northeast of Washington, DC. I hold degrees from Stanford University and the University of California, Davis, and a certificate in Cybersecurity from UMBC. Previously, I worked as a postdoctoral fellow in East Asian studies at Washington University in St. Louis.
I am an open-source researcher specializing in the analysis of science, technology, society, and policy. While much of my work draws on sources, fieldwork, and archival research in China, my approach is explicitly comparative, bridging Asian, European, and North American contexts.
My forthcoming book from Oxford University Press analyzes the emergence of evolutionary science and ecological consciousness in Chinese and Western societies. My research has benefited from the support of major foundations and institutions, including two fellowships from the Fulbright Program, a China Studies Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, a William S. Willis, Jr. Fellowship from the American Philosophical Society, and a Marjorie Harding Memorial Fellowship from the Thoreau Society.
In addition, I conduct policy research through the UMBC Public Health Research Center where I am a Faculty Affiliate and the UMBC Cybersecurity Institute where I served as the faculty advisor for a cyber fellowship funded by the State of Maryland. My public scholarship has reached national and international audiences through The Conversation, the Associated Press, and major US newspapers and media organizations. As a former language consultant for the National Language Service Corps, I work across multiple languages, including English, Mandarin Chinese (ILR 4+), Cantonese (DLI OPI 3), and German (DLPT 3), with additional reading proficiency in French (DLPT 2) and Japanese.
For the UMBC Magazine, I discussed my Fulbright experience in China and research trip to Mongolia with Catalina Sofia Dansberger Duque.
UMBC is a Carnegie R1 university and an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI).