Charles Kraus

Charles Kraus, Ph.D., is the Deputy Director of the History and Public Policy Program at the Wilson Center.

An accomplished scholar in the fields of modern Chinese history, international history, and Cold War studies, Kraus spearheads many of the Wilson Center's efforts to expand the public's access to declassified archival sources, provide training to next-generation historians and other historically-minded experts, and bring historical context to public policy issues. He has worked at the Wilson Center since 2012.

Kraus oversees the Wilson Center Digital Archive, a critically acclaimed research and teaching resource utilized by hundreds of thousands of individuals each year. He also coordinates the work of the Cold War Archives Research (CWAR) Institute, the Cold War International History Project, the North Korea International Documentation Project, and the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project. He leads efforts to obtain and publish archival documents from hard-to-access archives in China and other countries about PRC foreign relations, as well as the Wilson Center's other archival work related to Taiwan, Japan, the Koreas, and Southeast Asia. 

Kraus has published widely in peer reviewed journals and other outlets. His research covers topics as diverse as population resettlement and migration in Asia, 20th century Xinjiang, China's Cold War-era foreign relations, decolonization, North Korea's formative state-building years, ethnic and national identity in China, and the history of Coca-Cola in the PRC.

Fluent in Chinese, Kraus has conducted research in over 25 archives on Mainland China, as well as at dozens of others in the United States, Burma, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. He earned his M.A. (2014) and Ph.D. (2017) from The George Washington University and graduated summa cum laude from Hiram College (2010).