Leo A. Orleans
USCPF Boardmember
Born in Russia, raised in China, Leo Orleans came to the United States at the age of 15 in time to graduate from high school and to serve in the U.S. Army Air Force in the Pacific theater during WWII.
Mr. Orleans spent most of his career as a China Specialist at the Library of Congress where he held various research and administrative positions in a division that supported several agencies under the Department of Defense. In this capacity, he was frequently "borrowed" - on a reimbursement basis- by the Congressional Research Service to provide studies requested by Congressional committees. His thirty-year career at the Library was interrupted by several relatively brief stints at the National Science Foundation as Associate Studies Director in the Office of Economic and Manpower Studies, and at the National Academy of Sciences.
Throughout his career, Mr. Orleans participated in numerous domestic and international conferences. His first return visit to China was in 1973 as a member of the first official U.S. medical delegation, under the auspices of the NAS. In 1979, at the invitation of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Mr. Orleans visited the Soviet Union to participate in a series of discussions and to present a lecture, which he delivered in Russian.
For ten years after his retirement, Mr. Orleans retained his office at the Library and continued to be involved in numerous China-related activities, as well as continuing to fulfill contractual requests from the World Bank, National Defense University, National Research Council, the National Institute of Health and other institutions.
He is the author of many books and monographs, as well as scores of articles on population and manpower, science and technology, education, and numerous other topics related to China's impressive progress and pressing predicaments.