Ryan McElveen, Member at Large, FCPS School Board
Ryan is serving in his third term as an at-large member of the School Board in Fairfax County, Virginia -- the ninth largest school system in the country. When he was first elected to the position in 2011, he was the youngest person ever elected to the Board and the youngest elected official in Virginia. In that position, Ryan has advocated for and implemented curriculum internationalization; LGBTQ protections; sustainability initiatives; healthier school food; student mental health programs; student discipline reform; dress code reform; later high school start times; gun violence prevention; human trafficking prevention; improved college and career access; name changes for schools named after confederate figures; and excused absences for students participating in civic engagement activities.
Ryan’s experience spans the public- and private-sectors, NGOs, and academia. He currently serves as managing director of the U.S.-China Education Trust (USCET). Before joining USCET, Ryan served for 12 years as associate director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, where he supported a team of resident and nonresident scholars, research staff, and interns; launched and coordinated the U.S.-China Leaders Forum at Sunnylands and U.S.-China track II dialogues on topics ranging from artificial intelligence and national security to food security to economic and trade relations; implemented large-scale research projects; hosted major public events, retreats, and study tours in the U.S. and Asia; initiated the Brookings China Council and managed donor relations; oversaw longstanding partnerships with other global think tanks and academic institutions like Tsinghua University and Yale University; and coordinated with the Brookings-Tsinghua Center in Beijing.
His work with colleagues on the U.S.-China Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence and National Security laid the groundwork for the November 2024 agreement between Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden to maintain human control over the decision to use nuclear weapons, and he oversaw the creation of a U.S.-China glossary of AI terms to serve as a basis for future negotiations and agreements.
Ryan has also worked for the International Operations and Policy office of the Boeing Company, The Clinton Foundation and The Clinton Global Initiative, Columbia University's Weatherhead East Asian Institute, The China Institute, the University of Virginia Center in Shanghai, and the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and his writing has been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, International Herald Tribune, CNN, Current History, Lawfare, China-US Focus, the Cairo Review of Global Affairs, and the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs.
At the University of Virginia, he authored a strategic plan for internationalizing UVA’s curriculum and chaired committees on improving institutional diversity and minority political mobilization. In 2010, Ryan mobilized a campaign against the efforts of Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to discredit state university research on climate change. Ryan is the recipient of the University of Virginia's Cultural Fluency Award, the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Award, the Charles S. Robb Young Leaders Award, the Richard Rausch Equality Award, and he was a finalist in the Washington Post’s “America’s Next Great Pundit” contest.
Ryan holds a Master’s of International Affairs in human rights from Columbia University, a B.A. in Anthropology and East Asian Studies from the University of Virginia, and an International Baccalaureate diploma from George C. Marshall High School. Raised in the Vienna/Tysons Corner area of Fairfax County, he lives with his wife, Xuan, and daughters, Sierra and Isla, in McLean. Ryan enjoys running, playing the violin, and learning languages—he speaks Mandarin Chinese (including Sichuan dialect), Spanish, and conversational Korean.
