Elizabeth D. Knup has been named American co-director of The Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies.

The Nanjing program is administered by SAIS.

Knup joins Hopkins from the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a private organization promoting better relations between the two societies. As program director she developed and implemented a wide range of programs in fields such as higher education administration, the development of civil society and environmental protection and sustainable development.

"We are very fortunate to have Elizabeth join the Nanjing team," said Anthony J. Kane, Nanjing executive director. "She has over a decade-long record of success in advancing mutual understanding between the United States and China."

Knup, who received her B.A. in political science from Middlebury College and her M.A. from the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan, is a member of the advisory board of the Elisabeth Luce Moore Leadership Program for Chinese Women and a founding member of the China Roundtable. She developed and managed the Sustainable Land Use and Allocation Program for the Ussuri River Watershed, a four-year, trilateral sustainable development program; and she arranged three conferences relating primarily to environmental issues affecting China and the United States.

Knup will be based at the Nanjing Center, located on the campus of Nanjing University, and share oversight responsibility for the center with Chinese co-director Chen Yongxiang.

The center provides a one-year, graduate-level certificate program in international affairs for approximately 50 Chinese and 50 American and international students who are pursuing academic, government or business careers dealing with China and its relationship with the outside world. American and other non-Chinese students take graduate classes with Chinese professors in Chinese, and Chinese students are taught by an American faculty in English.

The center contains the only uncensored open stack library in China, containing more than 60,000 Western and Chinese volumes.