Tao Yuan Expertise: China

Tao Yuan was born and raised in Beijing and came to the United States in 1998 to attend the University of Iowa, where he earned his master’s degree in computer science. It was in Iowa City that Tao met his wife, Spring Cheng.

Soon after completing his graduate studies, Tao accepted a job offer from Microsoft, and he and Spring moved to the Seattle area. Currently, Tao is a software engineer and one of the group leaders on the Microsoft Windows production team.

Tao excels at a number of sports, including competitive badminton, marathon running, and mountain climbing. Three years after they met, Tao proposed to Spring on top of Mount Rainier, their first summit together. He has assisted in organizing successful mountaineering expeditions to western China and the eastern Tibetan Plateau. He co-founded Mystic Trails with Spring in 2006.