Instructors & Contributors

Stephen Xiao-Current Instructor

Stephen is currently a junior at Farragut High School and serves as the instructor of the Step 3 class at Rocky Top chess Inc. He previously taught Step 2 and Step 2 Plus during the 2022–2023 academic year. Among Stephen’s notable achievements are winning the Tennessee State Championship in 2020 and earning the runner-up title in 2023. He has also been a key contributor to Farragut’s state team championships, helping secure 1st place titles in 2022 and 2024 and a 2nd place finish in 2023. Stephen is deeply involved in the Farragut High School Chess Club and has played an active role in organizing and directing many tournaments in the Knoxville area.

Frank Yang-Current Instructor

Frank has been an assistant chess instructor with the Rocky Top Chess Club for three years, teaching Steps 1, 2, and 3. He also works as a private chess coach, restaurant manager, and Kumon tutor. A junior at Farragut High School, Frank serves as the Historian for the school’s Chess Club, where he has experience promoting, organizing, and running scholastic chess tournaments throughout the Knoxville area. Formerly a competitive chess player, Frank has earned multiple regional awards across East Tennessee.

Jared Li-Current Instructor

Jared has been an instructor for RTC since Spring 2023. Since his 9th grade (2022-2023), he has been a member of the Farragut High School chess team, which won the Tennessee State High School Team Championship twice in 2023 and 2025 and was a finalist team in 2024. At FHS, he likes the subjects in biology and chemistry. He will gradaute from FHS in 2026.

Bochen (John) Jiang-Current Instructor

Bochen is a freshman at Farragut High School with a long-standing passion for chess. He was first introduced to this game in Kindergarten and began formal training in Step1 under Dr. Li at RTC after moving to Knoxville in third grade. Since 2022, Bochen has served as a junior instructor at RTC, teaching Step1 and Step3 courses in person and leading a virtual game analysis class. Bochen is a two-time Tennessee Region 1 Scholastic Individual Champion (2022, 2023) at the middle school level and earned second place in the high school division in 2024. He captained the FMS chess team to a State Championship in 2024 and was a team member of the FHS chess team that won the State Championship in 2025. Outside of chess, Bochen is also an accomplished pianist. He was the Junior Piano Concerto Winner at the 2024 TMTA competition.

Dr. Fei Tian

President of RTC: 2025-pre

Treasurer of RTC: 2022-2024. 

Dr. Lilin He

Treasurer of RTC: 2025-pre

Secretary of RTC: 2022-2024. 

Dr. Jin Dong

Secretary of RTC: 2025-pre

Dr. Fankang Li

Web Master of RTC: 2025-pre

Dr. Fangxing Fran Li, The University of Tennessee Knoxville

Dr. Li was the initial founder of the club (was called Knoxville Chinese Christian Church Chess Club, KCCC Chess Club) back to early Spring 2016. Since then, he has been the instructor for Step 1 and Step 2 classes for RTC and its predecessor KCCC Chess Club for 9 years from 2016 to 2025. He also co/managed the chess club's operation and coordinates activities with other local and regional clubs from 2016 to 2022. He is a co-founder of Rand served as the President (2021-2022) of Rocky Top Chess Inc., a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization.

Dr. Julia Zhu, The University of Tennessee Knoxville

Dr. Zhu joined the club in Fall 2017. She taught Step 1 chess class and also helped the operation and activities of the club during 2018-2020. 

National Master Forest Chen, Farragut High School

NM Forest Chen joined the club in Fall 2016. He was a Farragut High School student during 2016-2020 and the top chess player in the State of Tennessee for several years. He has won a number of State Scholastic and Open titles.  He also directed and helped numerous local and regional chess tournaments, and inspired many parents and kids to play serious chess. Forest taught Step 3 class at the Rocky Top Chess Inc and its predecessor KCCC Chess Club from 2016 to 2019, and directed multiple chess tournaments during his high school time at greater Knoxville area. 

Dr. Jianggang Chen, The University of Tennessee Knoxville

Dr. Chen was one of the earliest members who joined the club in Fall 2016. Back to fall 2015, one day he was dinning at a local restaurant when the magic words “ELO rating” sneaked into his ears from a gentleman sitting at the next table.  He thought he knew all the strong local chess players but this man.  With great curiosity, he approached the gentleman asking about his chess rating.  That was his first meet with Dr. Li, an expert player of table tennis, a sport coincidentally also using ELO rating system to indicate the skill levels of table tennis players. Dr. Chen is a co-founder and served as the President (2019-2020) of Rocky Top Chess Inc. Dr. Chen is currently a senior advisor of RTC.   

Dr. Xiaopeng Zhao, The University of Tennessee Knoxville

Dr. Zhao was one of the earliest members who joined the club in Spring 2017. he is a co-founder and served as the President (2020-2021) of Rocky Top Chess Inc. He helped the operation and activities of the organization. He also directed several local chess tournaments including the All-Girls Scholastic Tournament in March 2019. He is currently a senior advisor of RTC.

Dr. Qiang Zhang

President of RTC from 2022-2024. 

Lei Xu 

Xu is the webmaster of the Rocky Top Chess Inc website. She also helps the operation and activities of the organization.

Justin Li

Justin Li was a student at Farragut High School from 2019 to 2023. He started to lectures at Rocky Top Chess Inc in fall 2019. He won Tennessee Region 1 Scholastic twice in 2017 (K-6) and 2019 (K-9). He finished 3rd place in 2020 Tennessee State Scholastic Individual Tournament, K-9 section. He served as the Director or Co-Director for multiple online and in-person chess tournaments during 2020-2023.