Yuan (Daniel) Cheng is currently an Assistant Professor in Leadership & Management Area in the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. He was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Paul H. O'Neill School  of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington from 2017 to 2018. 

Daniel's research agenda is focused on a range of theoretical and managerial questions lying at the nexus of governance, government-nonprofit relationships, co-production, and the distributional and performance implications of cross-sector collaboration. He is particularly interested in how government agencies, nonprofits and citizens interact in joint public service provision, and the performance implications of alternative service provision mechanisms. His most recent work examines the processes and consequences of nonprofits becoming important players in creating and financing public services, using evidence from parks and recreation services in large U.S. cities. Here is a video summary of Daniel's latest work. You can access Daniel's latest C.V. here. Overall, his research agenda is driven by the goal of better understanding the impact of nonprofit organizations in shaping public service provision, especially in situations where nonprofits are beyond the "tools" of government. 

Daniel has received many awards and recognitions for his work, including the Felice Davidson Perlmutter Best Paper Award of the ARNOVA Theory,Issues, and Boundaries Section, The ARNOVA Emerging Scholars Award, and the E-PARCC Best Collaborative Public Management Teaching Simulation Award. His Public Administration Review article on the changing role of nonprofits in public service provision is listed as the Highly Cited Public Administration Review Article and Web of Science Core Collection Highly Cited Paper. His work has been supported by the Ostrom Research Award, Center for Urban and Regional Affairs Faculty Interactive Research Program, and Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy Research Fund. 

Beyond academic writing, Daniel have written some advice in Chinese about how to network in conferences, how to write, and how to combat biases in the academia - here, how to use a trust-based framework to approach the job market in academia - here, and three analogies for academic publishing - here. 

Daniel received his B.S. in Environmental Science from Zhejiang University in China where he was also a Morningside Scholar. After one year of service in rural China for two Chinese NGOs, Daniel came abroad and obtained his M.A. in Philanthropic Studies and Ph.D. in Public Affairs from Indiana University.