Max D. Woodworth will assume the role of Interim Director of the Institute for Chinese Studies beginning in the Spring term. Max is a Geographer with a range of research interests in China, including its rapid urbanization, urban planning and design, Chinese political economy, and energy frontier development. Max is also conducting research these days in Taiwan, with one project funded by the Mershon Center and the OSU Office of International Affairs on the geopolitics of military dependent enclaves during the White Terror period and another project on the contemporary transformations of coal-mining enclaves. Max is eager to organize and support wide-ranging programming about China and to promote Chinese studies in the campus and broader community.

Professor Woodworth is an associate professor in the Department of Geography. He earned his PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley after earning his B.S. in Languages and Linguistics from Georgetown University and M.A. in Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. He also holds a Certificate in Chinese Studies from the Hopkins-Nanjing Center. Max is a geographer with research interests in multiple aspects of China’s urban transformations, including the political economy of land development, urban governance, city planning and spatial design, urbanization in resource extraction regions, and large-scale new-town development. He has recently expanded his scope of research to include Taiwan. His work there focuses on military enclaves during the White Terror period and mining settlements. Max has previously served as the Chair of the East Asian Studies Interdisciplinary M.S. Graduate Studies Committee and currently serves on the committee. He has also served as the Principal Investigator of the Asian Futures Global Arts and Humanities Discovery Theme grant. He teaches courses in human geography, geopolitics, urban China, and international economic development.