Senior Fellows

Senior fellowship are nominated by member universities of The China Centre, based on their contributions to the scholarship of China studies and to building the understanding and knowledge of China in academic institutions, the public sector and the business community in New Zealand.

Duncan Campbell

Duncan Campbell is Adjunct Teaching Fellow, Chinese Studies Programme, School of Languages and Cultures,Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. Duncan is a Wellingtonian who spent some years in Malaysia studying Mandarin, after graduating with a degree in English and history from Victoria University of Wellington. Between 1976 and 1978, he was a student in the People’s Republic of China. Since then, he has taught (Chinese language, modern and classical; Chinese literature, modern and classical; and aspects of Chinese history and civilisation) at the University of Auckland, Victoria University of Wellington, and the Australian National University in Canberra. In 2015, he was the curator of the Chinese Garden at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, USA. His research focuses on the late imperial period of China’s long history.

Christopher Elder

Chris Elder trained as a Chinese linguist before serving in the New Zealand Embassy in Beijing when it first opened in the early 1970s. He returned to Beijing as Ambassador from 1993-1997. Other ambassadorial appointments have been to Indonesia and to Russia. In Wellington, Chris has served as the Deputy Secretary with responsibility for Asian affairs and security policy in the Asia-Pacific region. He retired from the Foreign Ministry in 2012.

Dr Peter Harris

Peter Harris is a specialist in aspects of Chinese politics, international relations, history and literature, and an international consultant on civil society. His past positions at Victoria University of Wellington include Director of Asian Studies, Senior Fellow in Strategic Studies, and Acting Director of the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre. Peter has a Ph D in Asian history from Monash University, an M Phil in international relations from Oxford University, and a BA (Hons) in Chinese from Oxford University.

Professor Keith Woodford

Keith Woodford is an independent agribusiness consultant, working both in New Zealand and overseas, with honorary positions as Professor of Agri-Food Systems at Lincoln University, and Senior Research Fellow with the Contemporary China Research Centre at Victoria University of Wellington. He is currently part of a grassland sustainability research project on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, funded jointly by the Chinese and New Zealand Governments, and his China interests go back to 1973 when he first visited China. Despite visiting China many times over the intervening period, he regards himself as very much a learner in relation to that complex and fascinating country.