Alicia Chen

Alicia R. Chen joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as APARC Predoctoral Fellow for the 2026-2027 academic year. She is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University. She studies international relations and political economy, with a focus on China. Her dissertation examines the domestic political economy of China's international aid and finance, revealing how domestic politics and institutions shape its overseas economic activities. Her research is published in the British Journal of Political Science and has been generously supported by Stanford’s King Center on Global Development, the Freeman Spogli Institute, the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, among others. Prior to doctoral studies, she was a Research Specialist with the Empirical Studies of Conflict (ESOC) project at Princeton University. She holds an M.A. in International Policy from Stanford University and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Southern California.