Dr. David M. Lampton is an Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at Stanford University's Asia-Pacific Research Center and Hyman Professor and Director of China Studies Emeritus at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is a former chairman of the The Asia Foundation, former president of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, and former dean of faculty at SAIS.

Dr. Lampton's most recent book is Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping. It was initially published in January 2014 and was issued in a second edition with a new preface in 2019. His current field research focuses on Beijing's effort to build high-speed and other rail lines to Singapore from South China and involves interviews and field research in eight countries. The underlying issue is how to conceive of Chinese power. He is also author of The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds (2008).

Dr. Lampton received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University where, as an undergraduate student, he was a firefighter. He holds an honorary doctorate from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Far Eastern Studies.