Douglas Webster was a consulting professor at APARC from January 1999 - 2003. Webster has worked on urban and regional development issues in East Asia for twenty-five years, as an advisor to international organizations, East Asian governments, and the private sector. He was professor of planning at the University of British Columbia, the Asian Institute of Technology, and the University of Calgary, where he directed the urban planning program. His current interests focus on peri-urbanization in East Asia--the dynamic rural-urban transition process underway near large East Asian cities. Webster is currently senior urban advisor to the Thai Government (NESDB) and the East Asian Urban Unit (EASUR) of the World Bank.

Webster worked closely with Thomas Rohlen and James Raphael on the "Urban Dynamics of East Asia" project. In 1999, they taught a course on "Cities and Urban Systems in East Asia" that served as a catalyst for exploring developing ideas related to understanding urban development trajectories in East Asian cities--a key focus of the project. In 2000 and 2001, Webster taught a course on "Managing the Urban Environment in East Asia". Webster's recent publications have focused on comparative peri-urbanization in East Asia, application of strategic planning approaches to urban management, and the dynamics of change in post 1997 Bangkok. Through the World Bank, Webster is currently engaged in policy dialogues on urbanization with three Asian nations: China, the Philippines, and Thailand. In addition, he is a member of the team producing the World Bank's East Asian urbanization strategy that will be released shortly.

Webster and his colleagues on the Urban Dynamics project have recently been awarded a grant from the Ford Foundation to study comparative peri-urbanization in China.

Rafiq Dossani was a senior research scholar at Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) and erstwhile director of the Stanford Center for South Asia. His research interests include South Asian security, government, higher education, technology, and business.  

Dossani’s most recent book is Knowledge Perspectives of New Product Development, co-edited with D. Assimakopoulos and E. Carayannis, published in 2011 by Springer. His earlier books include Does South Asia Exist?, published in 2010 by Shorenstein APARC; India Arriving, published in 2007 by AMACOM Books/American Management Association (reprinted in India in 2008 by McGraw-Hill, and in China in 2009 by Oriental Publishing House); Prospects for Peace in South Asia, co-edited with Henry Rowen, published in 2005 by Stanford University Press; and Telecommunications Reform in India, published in 2002 by Greenwood Press. One book is under preparation: Higher Education in the BRIC Countries, co-authored with Martin Carnoy and others, to be published in 2012.

Dossani currently chairs FOCUS USA, a non-profit organization that supports emergency relief in the developing world. Between 2004 and 2010, he was a trustee of Hidden Villa, a non-profit educational organization in the Bay Area. He also serves on the board of the Industry Studies Association, and is chair of the Industry Studies Association Annual Conference for 2010–12.

Earlier, Dossani worked for the Robert Fleming Investment Banking group, first as CEO of its India operations and later as head of its San Francisco operations. He also previously served as the chairman and CEO of a stockbroking firm on the OTCEI stock exchange in India, as the deputy editor of Business India Weekly, and as a professor of finance at Pennsylvania State University.

Dossani holds a BA in economics from St. Stephen's College, New Delhi, India; an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, India; and a PhD in finance from Northwestern University.

Andrew G. Walder is the Denise O'Leary and Kent Thiry Professor at Stanford University, where he is also a senior fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Previously, he served as Chair of the Department of Sociology, Director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, and Head of the Division of International, Comparative and Area Studies in the School of Humanities and Sciences.

Walder has long specialized in the sources of conflict, stability, and change in communist regimes and their successor states. His publications on Mao-era China have ranged from the social and economic organization of that early period to the popular political mobilization of the late 1960s and the subsequent collapse and rebuilding of the Chinese party-state. His publications on post-Mao China have focused on the evolving pattern of stratification, social mobility, and inequality, with an emphasis on variation in the trajectories of post-state socialist systems. His current research is on the growth and evolution of China’s large modern corporations, both state and private, after the shift away from the Soviet-inspired command economy.

Walder joined the Stanford faculty in 1997. He received his Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Michigan in 1981 and taught at Columbia University before moving to Harvard in 1987. From 1995 to 1997, he headed the Division of Social Sciences at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Walder has received fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. His books and articles have won awards from the American Sociological Association, the Association for Asian Studies, and the Social Science History Association. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

His recent and forthcoming books include  Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement  (Harvard University Press, 2009);  China Under Mao: A Revolution Derailed  (Harvard University Press, 2015);  Agents of Disorder: Inside China’s Cultural Revolution  (Harvard University Press, 2019); and  A Decade of Upheaval: The Cultural Revolution in Feng County  (Princeton University Press, 2021) (with Dong Guoqiang); and Civil War in Guangxi: The Cultural Revolution on China’s Southern Periphery (Stanford University Press, 2023).  

His recent articles include “After State Socialism: Political Origins of Transitional Recessions.” American Sociological Review  80, 2 (April 2015) (with Andrew Isaacson and Qinglian Lu); “The Dynamics of Collapse in an Authoritarian Regime: China in 1967.”  American Journal of Sociology  122, 4 (January 2017) (with Qinglian Lu); “The Impact of Class Labels on Life Chances in China,”  American Journal of Sociology  124, 4 (January 2019) (with Donald J. Treiman); and “Generating a Violent Insurgency: China’s Factional Warfare of 1967-1968.” American Journal of Sociology 126, 1 (July 2020) (with James Chu).