Andrew Mertha

Andrew Mertha is the George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies, Director of the China Studies Program, and Inaugural Director of the SAIS China Research Center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). From 2019 to 2021, Mertha served as the Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs and International Research Cooperation at SAIS. He is formerly a professor of Government at Cornell University and an assistant professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. 
 
Mertha is the author of The Politics of Piracy: Intellectual Property in Contemporary China (Cornell University Press, 2005) and China’s Water Warriors: Citizen Action and Policy Change (Cornell University Press, 2008). In addition to his work solely focusing on China, Mertha is the author of Brothers in Arms: Chinese Aid to the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1979 (Cornell University Press, 2014) and the editor of May Ebihara’s Svay: A Cambodian Village, with an Introduction by Judy Ledgerwood (Cornell University Press/Cornell Southeast Asia Program Press, 2018). His fourth monograph, Bad Lieutenants: The Khmer Rouge, United Front, and Class Struggle, 1970–1997, was published by Cornell University Press in 2025. 
 
Mertha has articles appearing in the Journal of Comparative Politics, International Organization, and the China Quarterly, among other venues, as well as numerous book chapters in edited volumes.
 
Mertha has provided public testimony for the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, briefed the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, and has accompanied a U.S. congressional staff delegation to Beijing, Xinjiang, and Shanghai to discuss issues of terrorism and narcotics trafficking. He has appeared on National Public Radio, the British Broadcasting Corporation, Voice of America, Bloomberg, and PBS Newshour. Mertha’s comments have appeared in Time, the Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, BusinessWeek, the San Francisco Chronicle, the South China Morning Post, and the Cambodia Daily. 
 
Mertha is on the Editorial Committee for the Journal of Comparative Politics, and formerly on The China Quarterly and Asian Survey. He is vice president of the Center for Khmer Studies (CKS), a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and an alumnus of the NCUSCR Public Intellectuals Program, 2008-2010. He received his PhD from the University of Michigan and is originally from New York City.