Board of Directors & Staff
Dr. Denis Fred Simon
Full Professor of International Affairs
School of International Affairs
Pennsylvania State University
Dr. Denis Fred Simon is Full Professor of International Affairs at the School of International Affairs at The Pennsylvania State University. He also serves as Director of the Program on US-China Technology, Economic and Business Relations. His areas of expertise include global management of technology & innovation, international technology transfer, and S&T policy, with special reference to China and the Pacific Rim.
Prior to arriving at Penn State, he served as the founding Provost and Vice-President for Academic Affairs of the Levin Graduate Institute of International Relations and Commerce under the State University of New York in New York City. Before joining the Levin Institute, Dr. Simon served as Dean of the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.
Dr. Simon also has served as professor of international business strategy and technology management at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, Tufts University (1987-1995) and as the Ford International Professor of Management & Technology at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1983-1987). At the Sloan School and Fletcher School, he taught courses dealing with international business and management, international technology transfer, international manufacturing, and comparative government-business relations, especially with respect to promotion of high technology industries.
Previous to joining Rensselaer, Dr. Simon was President of Monitor Group (China). As a senior member of the Asia leadership team within Monitor Group (Asia), Dr. Simon helped drive overall business development and provided high-level management support and intellectual leadership for Monitor’s strategy engagements in China. Prior to joining Monitor, Dr. Simon was Managing Director of the Business Strategy and Architecture Innovation Center in Singapore for Scient Corporation. In addition, before his tenure at Scient, he was an Associate Partner at Andersen Consulting China, where he served as Director of the China Strategy Group. He also served as the General Manager for Andersen Consulting’s China practice in Beijing from 1998-2000. From 1990-1995, Dr. Simon served as President of China Consulting Associates (Boston), which was one of only four foreign consulting firms approved by China’s State Council to operate as a domestically registered management consulting company in the PRC. Dr. Simon also has served as a private consultant to numerous Fortune Global 500 firms regarding their business entry and operations in China.
Throughout his professional career, Dr. Simon has been an innovator in intellectual thought and program development. He is well-known in many circles for his academic as well as corporate “entrepreneurship.” He has written and lectured widely regarding innovation, high technology development, foreign investment and corporate strategy in the PacRim. His recent book (with Cong Cao), China's Emerging Technology Advantage: Assessing the Role of High-End Talent, was published by Cambridge University Press in March 2009.
He received his M.A. degree in Asian Studies in 1975 and Ph.D. in Political Science in 1980 from the University of California at Berkeley. He received his B.A. degree in Asian Studies from the State University of New York in 1974. He reads and speaks Mandarin Chinese fluently.
