He holds B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale University, where his dissertation won the Theron Rockwell Field Prize, and was a 2008-2010 fellow in the National Committee's Public Intellectuals Program. Prior to completing his Ph.D. in Chinese History at Yale, he spent two years as a Yale-China teacher in Hunan province. Dr. Platt is also the author of Provincial Patriots: The Hunanese and Modern China (Harvard, 2007).