Dr. Elise Anderson currently works as Senior Program Officer for Research and Advocacy at the Uyghur Human Rights Project, a Washington, DC-based NGO that conducts research-based advocacy in support of the rights of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims. She earned dual PhD degrees in Central Eurasian Studies and Ethnomusicology from Indiana University-Bloomington in August 2019. Her doctoral research, based on years of primary research in the Uyghur region, focuses on the relationships between Uyghur music and politics. Dr. Anderson has a varied professional background that includes experience in university teaching, public speaking, academic editing, translation, interpreting, and grantwriting. She is fluent in Uyghur and proficient in Mandarin, and is also a practicing musician and dancer. In 2019, she served as Liu Xiaobo Fellow at the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a U.S. federal commission tasked with monitoring the status of human rights and the rule of law in the PRC.
