Elise Marie Anderson

Dr. Elise Anderson is a practitioner and scholar whose work focuses on Uyghur communities in the People's Republic of China and across global diaspora communities. Dr. Anderson is widely recognized as an expert on Uyghur issues, having spent nearly the past two decades in close engagement on the topic, including a long stint living and conducting research in the Uyghur Region from 2012 to 2016. She has wide-ranging professional experience working in human rights and rule of law research, human rights advocacy, international development programming, academic and nonprofit grant-writing, university teaching, and editing. She is based in Washington, DC, where she works in a variety of consulting capacities and holds affiliations as a Professorial Lecturer in the Elliott School and Nonresident Visiting Scholar in the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the George Washington University; Nonresident Senior Fellow at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy; and Developmental Editor for Stray Cats Ink.

Dr. Anderson is an experienced speaker who has given dozens of talks and lectures at universities and other institutions, testified before the Canadian House of Commons and Uyghur Tribunal, and interpreted between Uyghur and English before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Her commentary on the Uyghur crisis has appeared in a number of major media outlets, and her research has been published in both scholarly and public-facing journals. She is also a trained vocalist, musician, and dancer who has formally studied classic Uyghur music (among other idioms). She earned dual Ph.D. degrees in Central Eurasian Studies and Ethnomusicology from Indiana University-Bloomington. She is an alumna of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program and Fulbright-Hays and was a National Finalist for the White House Fellowship in 2022.