On 21 August, Duke Kunshan University will welcome the health delegation from CSIS—the Center for Strategic and International Studies – one of the premier policy think tanks in the United States. Three headline speakers – J. Stephen Morrison, PhD, Senior Vice President and Director of the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, Dr. Paul Friedrichs, inaugural director of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, and Dr. Yanzhong Huang, Senior Fellow for Global Health, Council on Foreign Relations – will bring their insights to the DKU community in a discussion on “Bridging Health Diplomacy, Science, and Geopolitics”.
Symposium Agenda
16:30-18:00, August 21, 2025
Language: English
Lecture Hall, 1F, Innovation Building, Duke Kunshan University
16:30–16:35 Welcome Remarks
Fujie Xu, Co-Director, Global Health Program, Duke Kunshan University
16:35–16:40 Introduction of the Delegation
16:40–17:30 Panel DiscussionTopic: Bridging Health Diplomacy, Science, and Geopolitics
Panelists:
•J. Stephen Morrison, Senior Vice President & Director, Global Health Policy Center, CSIS
•Paul Friedrichs, Senior Adviser (Non-resident), CSIS Global Health Policy Center
•Yanzhong Huang, Senior Fellow for Global Health, Council on Foreign Relations
17:30–17:50 Q&A with Students
17:50–18:00 Group Photo
Meet the Speakers
J. Stephen Morrison
Senior Vice President and Director, Global Health Policy Center, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
J. Stephen Morrison, PhD, is a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and directs its Global Health Policy Center. Through several high-level commissions, he has shaped decisions in Congress and the administration on HIV/AIDS, reproductive health and gender equality, and health security – including pandemic preparedness. Presently, the CSIS Bipartisan Alliance for Global Health Security is tackling critical post-COVID challenges. Since 2018, Morrison has led global-health-security forums at the annual Munich Security Conference. From 2021 to 2023, he served as the James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. He is a trustee of the China Medical Board, sits on the board of the Rostropovich Vishnevskaya Foundation, and is a member of advisory boards at the University of Wisconsin–Madison International Division and the Johns Hopkins University Center for Humanitarian Health.
Paul Friedrichs
Senior Adviser (Non-resident), CSIS Global Health Policy Center; Inaugural Director of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy
Dr. Paul Friedrichs is an adjunct professor of surgery at the Uniformed Services University. Previously, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and the inaugural Director of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, advising the President and coordinating federal efforts to strengthen the United States and its partners’ capacities to detect, prevent, prepare for, and respond to pandemics and other biological events. Paul previously served as senior director for global health security and biodefense at the National Security Council. Prior to that, he served as the joint staff surgeon at the Pentagon, where he provided medical advice to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was the U.S. representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Committee of the Chiefs of Military Medical Services. In addition to caring for patients in combat, Antarctica, and other austere locations, he has led the Department of Defense’s global medical evacuation system and assisted in multiple major domestic and international responses to natural disasters and biological outbreaks, as well as global health diplomacy efforts.
Yanzhong Huang
Senior Fellow for Global Health, Council on Foreign Relations and Member, Bipartisan Alliance for Global Health Security, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Dr. Yanzhong Huang is a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he directs the Global Health Governance roundtable series. He is also a professor and director of global health studies at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations, where he developed the first academic concentration among U.S. professional international affairs schools that explicitly addresses the security and foreign policy aspects of health issues. He is the founding editor of Global Health Governance: The Scholarly Journal for the New Health Security Paradigm. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and a member of the CSIS Bipartisan Alliance for Global Health Security. Dr. Huang’s expertise spans Chinese health politics, global health security, and U.S.–China relations.
About “This is Global Health! Monthly Symposium Series”
Since 2014, the Global Health Research Center (GHRC) at Duke Kunshan University has organized a series of global health symposium events, inviting leaders, scientists, and industry experts in the global health field to exchange information on the latest research progress, international and domestic development trends, and global health education and practice. By July 2025, GHRC had successfully hosted 200 seminars. Starting in Fall 2024, the series has been renamed and restructured from the “Aegon-Industrial Global Health Seminar Series” to the “This is Global Health! Monthly Symposium Series,” featuring a new format of panel talks and a vision for greater impact.
