Cornell's China and Asia-Pacific Studies (CAPS) program announced Xin Xu as its new acting director, and Patrick W. Deegan as assistant director, as of July 1.

"I have no doubt that CAPS will become an even better program with their guidance and dedication," said Chen Jian, the Michael J. Zak Professor of History for U.S-China Relations and director of the CAPS program, who is teaching at the London School of Economics in the 2008-09 academic year.

Xu, who received a Ph.D. from Cornell in 2003, returned to the university last July as associate director and senior lecturer of the CAPS program and adjunct associate professor of government. Previously, he was an associate professor of international relations at China's Peking University and associate professor of international relations at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Japan. He was a visiting research fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs, an international fellow at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, a postdoctoral fellow on national security in the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University, and a visiting research fellow and acting director of the China and the World Program at Princeton University.

Deegan, a visiting scholar at Cornell's East Asia Program this past academic year, is a doctoral candidate in the art history, theory and criticism program at the University of California-San Diego. He has served as an adjunct instructor at San Diego State University, a guest instructor at Peking University and a visiting lecturer at several universities in China.

CAPS students study U.S-China relations and Asia-Pacific geopolitics at Cornell and at Peking University. Students complete four years of intensive Chinese language training and two semesters of externships in Washington, D.C. and Beijing. The first 11 CAPS majors graduated in 2008.