Tucker spent eight years studying at Columbia University where she earned an M.A. in history, an M. Phil. in American and East Asian relations, a certificate from the East Asian Institute, and her Ph.D. in 1978. She was an adjunct assistant Asian history professor at New York University from 1978-1979 when she became assistant professor of history at Colgate University from 1980-1986. There she taught Chinese history, American diplomatic history and American-East Asian relations. She received her tenure in 1985, but left a year later to become the Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in the Office of Chinese Affairs at the U.S. State Department and at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, China. In 1987 she was hired by Georgetown University for a joint appointment in the college and the school of foreign service. She was subsequently promoted to the rank of professor and remains on the faculty there.
Her accomplishments include:
- Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, United States Institute of Peace, Harvard University, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Council of Foreign Relations, and the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study Center. She has also had grants from the Smith Richardson Foundation, ACLS and the NEH.
- Served on the U.S. Department of State Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation
- Serves on the boards of Program for International Studies in Asia (PISA), the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University
- Member of the Council on Foreign Relations
Her publications include:
- Uncertain Friendships: Taiwan, Hong Kong and the United States (1945-1992) Winner of a 1996 Bernath Book Prize of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations
- Patterns in the Dust: Chinese-American Relations and the Recognition Controversy (1949-1950)
- Co-edited Lyndon Johnson Confronts the World
- Edited and annotated China Confidential: American Diplomats and Sino-American Relations
- Contributed articles on China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan to Foreign Affairs, Political Science Quarterly, Current History, Survival, Diplomatic History, Washington Quarterly and Project Asia.
She resides in Maryland with husband Dr. Warren I. Cohen.
Contribution: Professor of History at Georgetown University, expert on U.S. - East Asian Relations and American Foreign Relations
Hometown: New York, N.Y.
College Activities: Dean's List, Student Government, International Relations Club, Colloquium, Chairman on the Student Academic Affairs Committee, Student Representative on the Faculty Academic Affairs Committee, the Herald, Phi Beta Kappa, Pi Gamma MU
Major: History
Other Education: Columbia University, New York, N.Y. (M.A., 1974, Ph.D. 1978)