Duke University has announced that Feng Youmei was named the second chancellor of Duke Kunshan University in China. Since 2012, she has been serving as executive vice president of Wuhan University in China.
Feng Youmei is one of the few women university chancellors in China and the first woman to lead Duke Kunshan University, which was founded six years ago. After only holding graduate classes for four years, the university enrolled its first cohort of undergraduate students in August.
Sally Kornbluth, provost at Duke University in North Carolina, stated that “with Chancellor Feng bringing her strong leadership skills and her deep thinking of and rich experience in higher education management and reform to Duke Kunshan, the university’s future is indeed bright.”
Feng Youmei’s research concerns cardiovascular disease pathogenesis, with a particular focus on geriatric diseases, cancer, and health system reform. She earned a master’s degree in biochemistry at the Tongji Medical University of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology. After serving as a visiting scholar at Ohio State University, she returned to China to teach at Tongji Medical University.