Author: Elizabeth Van Wie Davis
Bio: <a href="http://mcbride.mines.edu/Elizabeth-Van-Wie-Davis">Elizabeth Van Wie Davis</a> is an expert on Asian geopolitics, and also serves as the director of the Division of Liberal Arts and International Studies at the Colorado School of Mines.  She is the author of numerous books on Chinese and Asian political and diplomatic issues, most recently <i>Ruling, Resources and Religion in China</i> (2012).  

She received her undergraduate education from <a href="http://shimer.edu">Shimer College</a>, where she enrolled after two years of high school via <a class="text" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_entrance_at_Shimer_College">the early entrance program</a>. Her Shimer studies included a year in the school's <a href="http://www.shimer.edu/academicprograms/undergraduate/shimerinoxfordprogram.cfm">Oxford University study program</a>. She subsequently received an MA and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, and taught at the University of Virginia, Mary Baldwin College, Illinois State University, Johns Hopkins University, and the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies.  She joined the School of Mines in 2009.  (source: <a href="http://shimercollege.wikia.com/wiki/Elizabeth_Davis#Brief_description">Shimer College Wiki</a>)