Samuel Casey Carter
President and CEO, Elling Eide Center
Board of Directors
Dr. Cynthia Chennault
Chair
Dr. Cynthia L. Chennault is an Emerita Associate Professor of Chinese Literature at the University of Florida. She earned her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1979 with a dissertation on the 5th-century poet Hsieh T’iao. From 2000 to 2010, she served as editor of the academic journal Early Medieval China. Beyond her publications, she has held leadership roles in various scholarly organizations and has served as a bridge between U.S. and Chinese academic communities through teaching, advising, and cultural exchange. Dr. Chennault has served as a Trustee and Board Member of the Eide Center since 2012.
Dr. Michael Drompp
Secretary
Dr. Michael R. Drompp is Professor Emeritus of History at Rhodes College, where he taught Chinese, Japanese, Inner Asian, and general East Asian history from 1989 until his retirement in 2022. His award-winning teaching was recognized with the Clarence Day Award in 1999 and the Jameson M. Jones Award in 2018. A leading scholar of 6th–9th-century steppe empires, he is the author of Tang China and the Collapse of the Uighur Empire: A Documentary History and has published multiple influential essays on Türk and Uighur polities.
Harold G. Mitchell
Board Member
Harold G. Mitchell, a cousin of renowned sinologist Elling O. Eide, Mitchell established the Eide estate as a nonprofit foundation and oversaw the completion of its Guy Peterson-designed facility dedicated to Chinese studies and Asian art. From 2012 to 2024 he served as CEO of the Eide Center and continues to serve as a member of the board.
Lee Eide Elliott
Board Member
Lee Eide Elliott is a cousin of Elling O. Eide and previously the owner of Elliott Fiduciary Services. She is a proud Floridian from Lake Placid, a graduate of the University of South Florida, and serves on both the board’s Finance and Land Management Committees.
Dr. Keith Knapp
Board Member
Dr. Keith Knapp is a Professor of History and a specialist in East Asian studies at The Citadel, with a focus on the cultural and social history of early medieval China (AD 100–600). He earned his B.A. from SUNY Albany and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Selfless Offspring: Filial Children and Social Order in Medieval China and co-editor of major scholarly works, including The Cambridge History of China, Volume Two: The Six Dynasties.
Dr. Joy Lidu Yi
Board Member
Dr. Joy Lidu Yi is an historian of Chinese art and architecture whose research centers on medieval cross-cultural Buddhist art and archaeology along the Silk Roads. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and is the author of Yungang: Art, History, Archaeology and Liturgy, the first comprehensive study of the fifth-century Yungang cave-chapel complex, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. She has taught a broad array of courses on Chinese and East Asian art, including Buddhist art, literati painting, and the social history of visual culture.
Mike McLaughlin
Board Member
Mike McLaughlin is the Senior Vice President for Gardens and Campus Alignment at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota, Florida, the most biologically diverse per acre of any botanical gardens in the world. In this role, he provides strategic and operational leadership for outdoor horticulture across both the Downtown and Historic Spanish Point campuses, with responsibilities spanning living collections health, landscape design, personnel, record-keeping, safety, policies, and budgeting. While based primarily at Historic Spanish Point, he maintains ongoing leadership and oversight of horticulture at the Downtown Campus, ensuring alignment in vision, standards, and execution across both locations. He received his B.S. in Horticulture from Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Dr. Anna M. Shields
Board Member
Anna M. Shields, Gordon Wu ’58 Professor of Chinese Studies at Princeton University, received her A.M. (1990) from Harvard University and her Ph.D. (1998) from Indiana University. She specializes in classical Chinese literature of the Tang, Five Dynasties, and Northern Song eras. Her particular interests include literary history and the emergence of new literary genres and styles in late medieval China; the sociology of literature; and the role of emotions in classical literature.
Members of the Board with Samuel Casey Carter, President & CEO of the Elling Eide Center
