Alex Nickley
Resident Director and Instructor, School of the Environment
Alex first started taking Chinese language classes as a freshman majoring in East Asian Studies at Ohio University. His interests in the region were greatly enhanced and informed during his junior year as a Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) recipient in Suzhou during the summer of 2009. After graduating summa cum laude in 2010, Alex decided to move to the City of Perpetual Spring (i.e., Kunming). He returned to the States as a FLAS fellow in the Asian/Pacific Studies Institute (APSI) at Duke University, earning an MA in 2015. His degree focused on environmental issues related to China primarily through the disciplines of history, anthropology and political ecology. Alex is an avid birder and amateur naturalist who fervently enjoys learning about the flora and fauna of new places.