Kris Hartley

About Kris Hartley

Kris Hartley is a nonresident fellow of global cities at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Currently he's an assistant professor at the Department of Asian and Policy Studies, Education University of Hong Kong. He researches development policy in Asia with a focus on innovation and technology. Hartley is also an affiliated scholar at the Center for Government Competitiveness at Seoul National University. He's now serving as a Fulbright Scholar in Thailand, and has previously held academic appointments at Cornell University, University of Melbourne, Vietnam National University, and Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan. During his doctoral studies he was a visiting researcher at the University of Hong Kong and the University of the Philippines-Diliman.

With over a decade of public and private sector experience, Hartley has worked with the United Nations, central and local government agencies in the United States, New Zealand, and Thailand, and research institutes in Japan, China, South Korea, Singapore, and Australia. He has consulted on a variety of topics including compact growth strategies, sustainable development, transportation planning, earthquake recovery, and infrastructure management.

Hartley’s research and consulting projects are connected by the overarching theme of new public policy models for the 21st century. His 2014 book, Can Government Think?: Flexible economic opportunism and the pursuit of global competitiveness, addresses administrative reform and policy adaptation in the context of national competitiveness and global systemic unpredictability. His research has been published in a variety of academic journals including Telecommunications Policy, Geoforum, Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Environmental Development, and City, Culture and Society. Additionally, he's pursued an active external engagement agenda, presenting at over 30 academic conferences, giving numerous broadcast interviews and invited lectures, and publishing over 100 commentaries in press venues including CNN International, China Daily, Huffington Post, and TheStraits Times.

Hartley holds a Ph.D. in public policy from the National University of Singapore and a Master of City Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. As a doctoral student, he held the President's Graduate Fellowship and was awarded the 2016 Wang Gungwu Medal and prize for best Ph.D. thesis in the social sciences. Harl is originally from Nashville, Tennessee and, prior to his career in consulting and academia, he spent four years as a secondary school Latin teacher, pianist, and tennis coach.