Heleen Mees is Adjunct Associate Professor at New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and Assistant Professor in Economics at Tilburg University. Before joining Tilburg University, she was Researcher at the Erasmus School of Economics. Her research interests include monetary policy, financial crises and China. Mees is Contributing Editor to Foreign Policy and a Columnist for the Financieele Dagblad. Her opinion articles have been published in international newspapers including The New York Times and The Financial Times. Heleen Mees is the author of four books; her latest The Chinese Birdcage - How China's Rise Almost Toppled the West was published in the Netherlands in 2009. Before, she worked at Ernst & Young’s headquarters in New York, the European Commission in Brussels and the Dutch Treasury in The Hague. Mees graduated both in economics and law. Mees is fluent in English and Dutch. In addition, she speaks Chinese (Mandarin), French and Italian. Mees lives and works in New York City.