Gao Bai is a lifelong professor of sociology at Duke University. Professor Gao Bai graduated from Peking University in the 1980s and received a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree. In 1994, he graduated from the Department of Sociology of Princeton University and received a doctorate in sociology.

Professor Gao Bai’s main research fields include economics and society, comparative history sociology, organizational theory, comparative political economy, international political economy and globalization.

Professor Gao Bai has been teaching at Duke University since graduation; has been a visiting scholar at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Tokyo, the Department of Economics of the University of One Bridge, the School of International Business and Law of Yokohama National University, the Tokyo University of Economics and the Max Planck Institute of Social Studies in Cologne, Germany; has been a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo, Meiji University and Jacob University in Bremen, Germany, as a self-strengthening professor at the University of Shanghai and a lecture professor at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics; and has been the director and chief expert of the China High Speed Railway Development Strategy Research Center at Southwest Jiaotong University since June 2014.