Fellows & Experts

To contact one of the Asia Society experts listed below, please email the Communications Department at pr@asiasociety.org or call 212-327-9271.

 

 

 

 

In-House Experts
 

Vishakha N. Desai

@vishakhadesai

Dr. Desai is the President and CEO of Asia Society, a leading global organization committed to strengthening partnerships among the people, leaders, and institutions of Asia and the United States. Founded by John D. Rockefeller 3rd in 1956, Asia Society is the premier organization with a unique focus on three-dimensional engagement — combining culture, commerce, and current affairs — with more than 35 countries in Asia. Appointed President in 2004, Dr. Desai sets the direction for the Society’s diverse sets of programs ranging from major U.S.-Asia policy initiatives and national educational partnerships for global learning to path-breaking art exhibitions and innovative Asian American performances. Dr. Desai is a frequent speaker at national and international forums on a wide variety of subjects that include US-Asia relationships, cultural roots of Asian economic development, regional connections within the Asia Pacific region, as well as the arts and cultures of Asia and Asian America. She has authored many opinion pieces that have appeared in over 50 publications around the world. As a scholar of Asian art, Dr. Desai has published and edited several books and numerous articles on traditional and contemporary art. She has an international reputation for introducing contemporary Asian art in the U.S. through critically acclaimed exhibitions and scholarly catalogues.

Expertise: 

 

Melissa Chiu

@melissa_chiu

Dr. Melissa Chiu is Director of the Asia Society Museum in New York and Vice President of the Society's Global Arts Programming. She was appointed director in 2004 after serving for three years as the Museum's first curator of contemporary Asian and Asian American art. As a leading authority on Asian contemporary art, she has initiated a number of major initiatives at the Asia Society Museum, including the launch of a contemporary art collection to complement the museum's outstanding Rockefeller Collection of traditional Asian art. Chiu, who is a frequent lecturer and commentator in the news media, is a visiting professor at the CUNY Graduate School. She has spoken at numerous American universities, including Harvard University. She was a Getty Research Fellow (2003-2004) and has served on grant and policy advisory committees for: the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Chiu is a member of the Academic Advisory Board, Asia Art Archives, Hong Kong; Advisory Board, Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Vancouver; Advisor for Art 21, an art television series broadcast on PBS; Board Member, Vietnam Foundation for the Arts; and is a founding member of the Asian Contemporary Art Consortium in New York.

Expertise: 

 

Rachel Cooper

@rachelanncooper

Rachel Cooper is Director of Culture and Performing Arts at the Asia Society. Cooper has presented and curated film programs from India, Indonesia, China, Iran, Japan, Korea and Thailand, as well as producing and presenting performances from throughout Asia. She has co-sponsored and presented various film festivals and film series at the Asia Society, including the Iranian Documentary and Short Film Festival, the Asian American International Film Festival and the IAAC India Film Festival, among others. She has organized major arts and culture initiatives, including Festival of Song: Music of India and Pakistan, Creative Voices of Islam in Asia, Festival of Indonesia and Dance — the Spirit of Cambodia. In addition, she has conducted and published research on international impact of the arts, which resulted in the report Making a Difference through the Arts. In 2006 she was awarded the Dawson Award for Sustained Excellence in Arts Programming.

Expertise: 

 

Suzanne DiMaggio

@suzannedimaggio

As the Vice President of Global Policy Programs, Suzanne DiMaggio oversees Asia Society’s task forces, working groups, and Track II initiatives aimed at promoting effective policy responses to the most critical challenges facing the United States and Asia. She is currently leading projects focused on US-Iran relations, regional security in South Asia, Burma/Myanmar, and sustainability issues in Asia, including food and water security. Prior to joining Asia Society in 2007, Ms. DiMaggio served as the Vice President of Global Policy Programs at the United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA), where she directed programs aimed at advancing multilateral approaches to global problem solving and encouraging constructive US international engagement. She also led UNA-USA's Track II dialogues with partners in the Middle East and Asia on a range of issues, including regional security, terrorism, nonproliferation, multilateral peace operations, and global environmental governance. From 2002 to 2007, she directed a US-Iran policy dialogue, which served as one of the few bridges facilitating sustained, face-to-face discussions between Americans and Iranians. Prior to joining UNA-USA in 1998, Ms. DiMaggio was a Program Officer at the United Nations University (UNU), a research institute that links the UN system with international academic and policy communities.

Expertise: 

 

Anthony Jackson

Anthony Jackson is Vice President for Education at Asia Society. He also leads Asia Society's Partnership for Global Learning (PGL), a national membership network of practitioners and policymakers dedicated to integrating knowledge about Asia and the world as a mainstay of American education. Over the past six years, he has led the development of Asia Society's International Studies Schools Network, an effort within the PGL to create a network of small, effective, internationally-themed secondary schools across the country. Before joining Asia Society, he was a Director of the Walt Disney Company's Disney Learning Partnership, where he designed and oversaw the Creative Learning Communities network of reforming elementary schools. Dr. Jackson, trained in both developmental psychology and education, is one of the nation’s leading experts on secondary school reform and adolescent development. After a stint on Capitol Hill as a Congressional Science Fellow he became a senior staff member on the Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, chaired by George Miller (D-CA). Dr. Jackson later directed the Carnegie Corporation Task Force on the Education of Young Adolescents that produced the seminal Turning Points report, which became a key blueprint for the reform of thousands of middle schools nationwide.

Expertise: 

 

Mike Kulma

Dr. Michael G. Kulma is the Executive Director of Global Leadership Initiatives at the Asia Society headquarters in New York. In this capacity he directs the Society's four major leadership initiatives: Asia 21 Young Leaders, Diversity Leadership Forum, Williamsburg Conference, and Women Leaders of New Asia. He began his career at the Asia Society in 2000 working on policy issues related to Northeast Asia with a specific concentration on China. Prior to that, he lectured at colleges in the New York City area, focusing on East Asian politics, foreign policy, and international relations. Michael contributes regularly to print and broadcast media on Asia-focused issues. He was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a member of The National Committee on United States-China Relations. Michael received a BA in economics from the University of Chicago, a master's in public and international affairs from the University of Pittsburgh, and a PhD in political science from the City University of New York. He speaks Mandarin.

Expertise: China; Northeast Asia; Policy; Foreign Policy; Multilateral Institutions

 

Chris Livaccari

@vowelfusion | website

Christopher M. Livaccari is Director of Education and Chinese Language Initiatives at Asia Society. He is a teacher of the Chinese and Japanese languages, and a former U.S. Foreign Service officer who served at the US Embassy in Tokyo, Japan, as Deputy Director of the Tokyo American Center, and at the US Consulate General in Shanghai, China. Chris has led the development of the Asia Society Confucius Classrooms Network, a national initiative to improve the quality of Chinese language instruction in American schools, and to connect more than 100 U.S. schools in almost 30 states that teach Chinese with partner schools across China. He was a founding member of the faculty at the College of Staten Island High School for International Studies, where he started the East Asian studies, Model United Nations, and Chinese and Japanese language programs. He is the co-author of Structures of Mandarin Chinese for Speakers of English (Peking University Press) and the Chinese for Tomorrow series (Cheng & Tsui), among other publications in English, Chinese, and Japanese. Chris is a graduate of Columbia University, the University of Chicago and New York University. He speaks Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, reads Classical Chinese, and is proficient in Korean.

Expertise: World languages education, especially the teaching and learning of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean; International education; Cultural history of East Asia; U.S.-East Asia cultural diplomacy

 

Alexis Menten

Alexis Menten is a director in Asia Society’s Education division, where she leads afterschool and youth leadership initiatives for the Partnership for Global Learning. The Partnership connects educators, business leaders, and policymakers to share best practices, build partnerships, and advance policies to ensure that all students are prepared for work and citizenship in the global 21st century. In support of this mission, Alexis directs Asia Society’s Expanding Horizons initiative, which advances global learning as an essential approach for all high-quality afterschool and summer programs, and as a means to build collaboration between schools and community partners. Alexis joined Asia Society after several years in Central Asia and the Middle East, where she coordinated youth programs for the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and directed school- and community-based educational technology programs for Relief International - Schools Online. She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College.

Expertise:

 

Orville Schell

@orvilleschell

Orville Schell is the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society in New York. He is a former professor and Dean at the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.  Schell is the author of fourteen books, nine of them about China, and a contributor to numerous edited volumes. His most recent books are, Virtual Tibet, The China Reader: The Reform Years, and Mandate of Heaven: The Legacy of Tiananmen Square and the Next Generation of China's Leaders. He is also a contributor to such magazines as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Granta, Wired, Newsweek, Mother Jones, The China Quarterly, and The New York Review of Books. Schell graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard University in Far Eastern History, was an exchange student at National Taiwan University in the 1960s, and earned a PhD (Abd) at University of California, Berkeley in Chinese History. He worked for the Ford Foundation in Indonesia, covered the war in Indochina as a journalist, and has traveled widely in China since the mid-70s.

Expertise: China; Chinese History; US-China Relations; Energy, Environment and Climate Change; Sustainability 

 

Senior Fellows
 

Jamie Metzl

@jamiemetzl

Jamie Metzl is a Senior Fellow at Asia Society and was formally Asia Society’s Executive Vice President, where he was responsible for overseeing the institution’s strategic directions and overall program activities worldwide. Metzl developed and led Asia Society's Asia 21 Young Leaders Initiative, the organization's Pan-Asia-Pacific leadership development program. He has served as Deputy Staff Director and Senior Counselor of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senior Coordinator for International Public Information at the Department of State, and Director for Multilateral and Humanitarian Affairs on the National Security Council, and as a Human Rights Officer for the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia. Metzl appears regularly on national and international media, including CNN, BBC, Bloomberg, and CBS. The author of a book on human rights in Southeast Asia and the novel The Depths of the Sea, his syndicated columns and other writing on Asian affairs, genetics, virtual reality, and other topics appear in publications around the world. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a founder and Co-Chair of the Board of the bipartisan national security organization Partnership for a Secure America, and a member of the board of the Jewish refugee agency HIAS.

Expertise: Asia economic issues; Asia regional geopolitics; U.S. foreign policy towards Asia; Global implications of China's rise; Human rights; Afghanistan; Cambodia; Mongolia 

 

Senior Advisors
 

Hassan Abbas

@watandost | website

Dr. Hassan Abbas is a former Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the Asia Society’s New York headquarters. Hassan joined Columbia University's South Asia Institute as Quaid-i-Azam Chair Professor in January 2010 and is also a Senior Advisor at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, after having been a Research Fellow at the Belfer Center from 2005 to August 2009. He is also a non-resident Fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), Michigan, and an Associate of the Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU), University of Bradford, in the United Kingdom. He received his Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University and an LL.M. in International Law from Nottingham University, UK, where he was a Britannia Chevening Scholar (1999). Hassan also remained a visiting fellow at the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School (2002–2003) and as a visiting scholar at the Harvard Law School's Program on Negotiation (2003–2004). His research interests are nuclear proliferation, religious extremism in South and Central Asia, and relations between Muslims and the West. Hassan is a former Pakistani government official who served in the administrations of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (1995–1996) and President Pervez Musharraf (1999–2000).

Expertise: 

 

Priscilla A. Clapp

Priscilla A. Clapp is a retired Minister-Counselor in the U.S. Foreign Service. She is currently involved in community and academic work with several institutions. During her 30-year career with the U.S. Government, Ms. Clapp served as Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Burma (1999-2002), Deputy Chief of Mission in the US Embassy in South Africa (1993-96), Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Refugee Programs (1989-1993), Political Counselor in the US Embassy in Moscow (1986-88), and chief of political-military affairs in the US Embassy in Japan (1981-85). She also worked on the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, in its East Asian, Political Military, and International Organizations Bureaus, and with the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. She speaks Russian, Japanese, French, and some Burmese. Prior to government service, Ms. Clapp spent 10 years in foreign policy and arms control research, under contract to the MIT Center for International Studies and as a research associate at the Brookings Institution. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Her books include: with Morton Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Brookings, 2006), with I.M.Destler et al., Managing an Alliance: the Politics of U.S.-Japanese Relations (Brookings, 1976), with Morton Halperin, U.S.-Japanese Relations in the 1970's (Harvard, 1974). She is the author of numerous chapters, articles and other publications on foreign policy.

Expertise: 

 

Bernard Schwartz Fellows
 

The Bernard Schwartz Fellows Program seeks to contribute to a better understanding of policy challenges related to the growing importance of Asia in the international political arena and global economy. The program selects highly qualified professionals to serve as resident Fellows at Asia Society's headquarters in New York City or its office in Washington, D.C. for up to one year. During the course of their residencies, Fellows direct a policy initiative, such as a Task Force, Study Group, or policy research project.

Past Bernard Schwartz Fellows

 

Richard C. Holbrooke Fellows
 

The Richard C. Holbrooke Fellowship for Next Generation Policy Leaders is designed to identify, engage, and promote the next generation of Asian and American foreign policy leaders. The program will appoint two of the most outstanding under-40 leaders per year from any country in the Asia-Pacific region to serve for a one-year term as Holbrooke Fellows. During their term, Fellows will: participate in the Asia Society Williamsburg Conference, participate in the Asia 21 Summit, serve as non-resident fellows of the Asia Society in a manner similar to that of Asia Society Associate Fellows, and write about an Asia-Pacific regional strategy for addressing a significant shared challenge.

Past Richard C. Holbrooke Fellows

 

Associate Fellows
 

The Asia Society Associate Fellows Program was developed to deepen the public’s understanding of Asia and U.S-Asian relations, raise a greater awareness of current events, and provide more opportunities for nuanced public dialogue on important issues that are affecting both communities. The Program aims to build a network of leading Asia experts and scholars in the United States and around the world. As recognized leaders in their respective fields, Asia Society Associate Fellows are frequently called upon to raise the profile on important and timely issues affecting the Asian region while helping to accurately shape public understanding on these subjects.

Faiysal Alikhan

@faiysalalikhan

Faiysal AliKhan is Senior Advisor, Public Policy, for DHL Pakistan. He is also the Founder and Executive Director of FIDA, an organization working in the southern districts of Pakistan’s Frontier Province and Tribal Area.  Recently, FIDA has carried out relief work for those displaced by military operations and by flooding.  He also serves on the board of the Rural Support Programmes Network and is an active member of a number of their steering committees. In addition, Fayisal is the Executive Director of the PESCO Group, which is involved in trading, consultancy in the energy sector, transportation and contract logistics. He is a member of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and chair of their Customs and Trade Regulation Commission. He is also a member of the National Trade and Transport Facilitation Committee (NTTFC) and the Transport Commission of Pakistan.   Faiysal has spoken on issues of national security, development and trade at a number of think tanks, organizations and government offices both in Pakistan and abroad. Previously, Faiysal served on the Boards of SHV Energy and DHL Pakistan, and has worked as Director of Operations for DHL.

Expertise: 

 

Charles Armstrong

Charles K. Armstrong is The Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies in the Social Sciences in the Department of History and the Director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University. Professor Armstrong teaches courses on modern Korean history, the international history of East Asia, and US-East Asian relations, among others. A specialist in the modern history of Korea and East Asia, Professor Armstrong has published several books on contemporary Korea, including The Koreas (Routledge, 2007), The North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950 (Cornell, 2003), Korea at the Center: Dynamics of Regionalism in Northeast Asia (M.E. Sharpe, 2006), Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy, and the State (Routledge, second edition 2006), and Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950 – 1990 (Cornell, forthcoming). Prof. Armstrong holds a BA in Chinese Studies from Yale, an MA in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and PhD in History from the University of Chicago.

Expertise: Contemporary North Korean and South Korean Affairs; Northeast Asian security and international relations; US foreign policy in East Asia

 

Michael Buehler

website

Michael Buehler (Ph.D., The London School of Economics and Political Science) is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northern Illinois University. Specializing in Comparative Politics, his teaching and research interests evolve around state-society relations under conditions of democratization and decentralization. He is particularly interested in state-civil society relations, the relationship between party systems and social movements as well as state-religion relations. In 2008, he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies in Holland. Between 2008 and 2010 he was the Postdoctoral Fellow in Modern Southeast Asian Studies at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University. Michael Buehler has consulted on aid effectiveness, corruption eradication, party financing, procurement reform and other governance and political reform issues at the national and local level for, amongst others, the Asia Foundation, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), Transparency International, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), USAID and the World Bank. He has also contributed to political risks evaluations for private sector companies operating across South East Asia and is a regular contributor to news briefs on political and economic developments in the region for Oxford Analytica, a business consultancy company.

Expertise: Southeast Asia; Corruption; Democratization; Decentralization; Elections; Governance; Islam; Local Politics

 

Pramit Pal Chaudhuri

website

Pramit Pal Chaudhuri is the Foreign Editor of the Hindustan Times who comments on Indian international security and economic policy. He is presently serving a two-year term on the Indian government’s National Security Advisory Board. Pramit also serves as a delegate to a number of Aspen India Institute-Confederation of Indian Industries track-two dialogues including those with the US, China and a trilateral dialogue with the US and Japan. Pramit is a Senior Associate of the New York-based economic consultancy, the Rhodium Group. In 2011, he was part of an Aspen Institute of India-Council for Foreign Relations study group that issued a report United States and India: A Shared Strategic Future. He was previously an editorial writer for the Telegraph and the Statesman of Calcutta. Pramit was a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the Asia Society New York in 2007-08. In the past he has been a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow at the University of Maryland - College Park; media fellow at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy; South Asia fellow at the Henry Stimson Centre and a Visiting Fellow at Cornell University's South Asia department. Pramit has a BA in history from Cornell University and has traveled to over 50 countries.

Expertise: Indian foreign policy and political economy; corporate India’s overseas activity; Asian geopolitics and technology policy

 

John Ciorciari

website

John D. Ciorciari is an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy.  He focuses on international law and politics, particularly in Asia.  Before joining the Michigan faculty, he held postdoctoral fellowships at Stanford University and was a policy official covering Asia in the U.S. Treasury Department. He was also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, and worked as an attorney at the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell. Since 1999, he has been a pro bono legal advisor   to the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which promotes memory and justice with respect to the abuses of the Khmer Rouge regime. John is the author of The Limits of Alignment, which examines foreign policy dilemmas facing Southeast Asian states as they navigate relations with the great powers and co-editor with Anne Heindel of On Trial: The Khmer Rouge Accountability Process. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and holds an A.B. and J.D. from Harvard and M.Phil. and D.Phil. from Oxford.

Expertise: International relations in the Asia-Pacific; U.S. foreign policy in Asia; transitional justice

 

John Delury

@johndelury

John Delury is assistant professor at Yonsei University's Graduate School of International Studies, where he teaches modern Chinese history and East Asian politics. John is also senior fellow of Asia Society's Center on US-China Relations (where he was Associate Director) and Director of the China Boom Project. He directs an Asia Society/University of California task force on US-DPRK economic engagement, and advises two youth enterprises, Pyongyang Project and Choson Exchange. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and sits on the National Committee on American Foreign Policy's Leadership Council. He has published widely in sources such as Huffington Post, Slate, Foreign Policy, Far Eastern Economic Review, World Policy Journal, and Policy Review, and appears regularly in the media. John received his BA, MA, and PhD in Chinese history from Yale University, where he studied under Jonathan Spence, and taught at Columbia, Brown and Peking University.

Expertise: 

 

Sadanand Dhume

@dhume01

Sadanand Dhume is an Indian writer and journalist based in Washington, D.C. who writes on Asian affairs. He is the author of My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with a Radical Islamist, a travel narrative about the rise of fundamentalism in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country. Between 1999 and 2004 Dhume lived in Asia. He served as India bureau chief of the Far Eastern Economic Review and as Indonesia correspondent of FEER and The Wall Street Journal Asia. His essays, op-eds and reviews have also been published in The Washington Post, Forbes, Commentary, YaleGlobal and Foreign Policy. His television appearances include CNN, PBS, BBC World, Al Jazeera International, CNBC Asia and ABC Television; he has also been interviewed by BBC World Service Radio, ABC Radio and ABC Radio (Australia). Dhume holds a master’s degree in international relations from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, a master’s in journalism from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, and a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Delhi. In 2007 Dhume was an inaugural Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the Asia Society. He is currently working on a nonfiction book about the impact of globalization on India. He is represented by Aitken Alexander Associates in London.

Expertise: 

 

Ayako Doi

Ayako Doi is an independent journalist with expertise in Japan and East Asia. She served as the Editor of the Japan Digest, a daily briefing paper for government officials, business people and the academics, until 2004, and the contributing editor for its sister publication, the Japan Automotive Digest, until 2009. Doi began her career in journalism as a reporter for Sankei Shimbun in Tokyo, and worked for Forbes in New York, for Newsweek in Tokyo and for the Japan Times in Washington. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Press Club, Congressional press corps, the Asia Society and the Japan-America Society. She also taught a course on Japanese politics and diplomacy at Johns Hopkins University. She has written many articles on Japan and the U.S.-Japan relationship for the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and Foreign Policy, among other publications. She has been a guest on PBS News Hour, CNN, C-SPAN, CNBC and the National Public Radio. Doi has a Bachelor of Arts (Political Science) from Waseda University and a Master of Science in journalism from Columbia University. In the mid-1970s she was a French government fellow for the Journalistes en Europe program in Paris.

Expertise: Japan (politics, economy, society); U.S.-Japan Relations; Asian Strategic Challenges; Japan-China Relations

 

Alexandra Harney

@thechinaprice

Alexandra Harney is a Blakemore fellow at Tsinghua University and an Associate Fellow at the Asia Society. The author of The China Price: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage (The Penguin Press, 2008), Alexandra spent seven years at the Financial Times as an editor and reporter covering China and Japan. She has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic and The Wall Street Journal, among many other publications. Alexandra appears regularly on the BBC, NPR and other international media discussing economic, political and social developments in China and Japan. A graduate of Princeton University, Alexandra has a degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. She is a member of the National Committee on US-China Relations and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is also an Asia Society Asia 21 Fellow. In 2012, Alexandra will be moving to Tokyo as an international affairs fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations. She speaks, writes and reads Mandarin Chinese and Japanese.

Expertise: China; Japan; Social Consequences of Economic Change; Demographic Trends; Labor Issues; Economics and Policy

 

Ayesha Haroon

@ayesharoon

Ayesha Haroon is editor of The News International in Lahore and an associate fellow at the Asia Society.

Expertise: 

 

Mira Kamdar

@mirakamdar | website

Dr. Mira Kamdar is a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York and a member of the editorial board of World Policy Journal. Dr. Kamdar most recent book, Planet India: the Turbulent Rise of the Largest Democracy and the Future of Our World (Scribner 2008) has been translated and published in over a dozen foreign editions. Her memoir Motiba's Tattoos: A Granddaughter's Journey into her Indian Family's Past (Public Affairs, 2000) was a 2000 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection and won the 2002 Washington Book Award. Dr. Kamdar’s work appears in leading publications around the world, including in India Ink for the New York Times, Slate, Yale Global, Le Monde Diplomatiquel, World Policy Journal and The Caravan magazine where she is a contributing editor. She writes Le Mot de l’Inde column for Courrier International. She regularly provides expert commentary in English and in French for the BBC, CNN and CNN International, Bloomberg, France 24, Radio France, NPR. Dr. Kamdar was a Fulbright Senior Scholar affiliated with the Centre des Etudes sur l’Inde et l’Asie du Sud at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris in 2010-2011.  She has taught international affairs courses on India at SUNY Stony Brook and currently teaches at Sciences Po in Paris.

Expertise: Environment: Climate Change and Energy; Asian Strategic Challenges: US-Asia; India; Economics; Europe and Asia; Agriculture and Food Politics and Policies; Sustainability

 

Zachary Karabell

@zacharykarabell

Dr. Zachary Karabell is President of River Twice Research and Senior Advisor for Business for Social Responsibility. Previously, he was Executive Vice President, Head of Marketing, and Chief Economist at Fred Alger Management, President of Fred Alger and Company, as well as Portfolio Manager of the China-US Growth Fund. He was also Executive Vice President of Alger's Spectra Funds. At Alger, he oversaw the creation, launch and marketing of several funds, led corporate strategy for acquisitions, and represented the firm at public forums and in the media. He sits on the board of the World Policy Institute and the New America Foundation, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2003, the World Economic Forum designated Karabell a "Global Leader for Tomorrow". He is the author of several books, including the recently published Superfusion: How China and America Became One Economy and Why the World's Prosperity Depends on It (Simon & Schuster, 2009) and previous books such as A Visionary Nation: Four Centuries of American Dreams and What Lies Ahead, The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election (which won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for best non-fiction book of the year), and Peace Be Upon You: The Story of Muslim, Christian and Jewish Coexistence (Knopf, 2007). He is a regular commentator on national news programs, such as CNBC, CNN, and a contributor to such publications as the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Newsweek and Foreign Affairs. Dr. Karabell was educated at Columbia and Oxford before receiving his Ph.D from Harvard.

Expertise: Asian Strategic Challenge - US-Asia; Asia Strategic Issues - Economics

 

Bertil Lintner

@gardlunden

Bertil Lintner is a Swedish journalist based in Thailand and the author of several works on Asia, including Blood Brothers: The Criminal Underworld of Asia. Lintner is one of many blacklisted journalists who have not been allowed to enter Burma since 1989. Lintner has written numerous articles and books on Burma, and is considered to be one of the most knowledgeable foreign journalists on Burmese affairs. The junta says his reports on Burma are groundless and based on wishful thinking. Lintner was the first foreign journalist to learn about Aung San Suu Kyi's release from house arrest in 1995. Nowadays Lintner's main focuses have shifted to Laos and North Korea. Lintner has authored: Outrage: Burma's Struggle for Democracy (1989/1990); The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Burma (1990); Lade of Jade: A Journey Through Insurgent Burma (1990; 1996 as Land of Jade: A Journey from India through Northern Burma to China); Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency Since 1948 (1994, 1999, 2003); The Kachin: Lords of Burma's Northern Frontier (1998); Blood Brothers: Crime, Business and Politics in Asia (2002); Great Leader, Dear Leader: Demystifying North Korea under the Kim Clan (2005); Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's Struggle for Democracy (in Korean, 2007); Thailand: Mer än sol och stränder (2008); and Merchants of Madness: The Methamphetamine Explosion in the Golden Triangle (with Michael Black, 2009). Lintner has also interview for most regional and international news agencies.

Expertise: Asian Strategic Challenges: Hotspots; Asian Strategic Issues: Human Rights and other legal issues; Burma, North Korea and Laos: Hotspots

 

Duncan McCargo

Duncan McCargo is Professor of Southeast Asian Politics at the University of Leeds, UK, and wrote his PhD thesis on Thai politics at London's School of Oriental and African Studies. He is currently in his second stint chairing Leeds' School of Politics and International Studies, one of Britain's largest university politics departments. McCargo's specialty is fieldwork-based research on the politics of Thailand, including book-length studies of the controversial politicians Chamlong Srimuang and Thaksin Shinawatra, on the internal politics of the Thai-language press, and on the ongoing insurgency in the Patani region. His last book, Tearing Apart the Land: Islam and Legitimacy in Southern Thailand (Cornell, 2008) won the Asia Society's inaugural 2009 Bernard Schwartz Book Prize. McCargo also taught for three years in Japan, has held year-long visiting appointments in Cambodia and Singapore, and has written and researched on Indonesia and Vietnam. No stranger to controversy, he gained some notoriety for his ground-breaking 2005 Pacific Review article on Thailand's "network monarchy."

Expertise: Politics of Thailand; Cambodian politics

 

Katharine H.S. Moon

Katharine H.S. Moon is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Wellesley College. Moon received her B.A. from Smith College, magna cum laude, and her Ph.D. from Princeton University, Department of Politics.  She was born in San Francisco. Moon is the author of Sex Among Allies: Military Prostitution in U.S.-Korea Relations (Columbia University, 1997; Korean edition by Sam-in Publishing Co., 2002) and other publications on the U.S.-Korea alliance and social movements in Korea and Asia (e.g. democratization, women's movements, migrant workers, human rights).  They are available in edited volumes and academic journals such as Asian Survey and The Journal of Asian Studies and Korean publications such as Changjak gwa Bipyeong and Dangdae Bipyeong. Currently, Moon is completing a book manuscript Protesting America, Pursuing Democracy: Korean Civil Society in Alliance Politics (forthcoming, GAIA/University of California Press). Moon received a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship in 2002 to conduct field research in Korea on this subject and was a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the George Washington University in 2002-03. Katharine Moon has served in the Office of the Senior Coordinator for Women’s Issues in the U.S. Department of State and as a trustee of Smith College. She serves on the editorial board of several journals of international relations and consults for NGOs in the U.S. and Korea.  She also serves on policy task forces designed to examine current U.S.-Korea relations and contributes op-eds to various media organizations.

Expertise: 

 

Ann Marie Murphy

Dr. Ann Marie Murphy is Associate Professor at the John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University and adjunct research scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. Her research interests include Southeast Asian politics and international relations, and U.S. foreign policy toward Asia. She has been a visiting research scholar at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta, Indonesia, and the Institute of Security and International Studies, Bangkok, Thailand. She monitored Indonesia’s first direct presidential election in July 2004 as a member of the Carter Center delegation and has served on the Freedom House Ratings team. In August 2008, Dr. Murphy was honored by the Indonesian government which named her a Presidential Friend of Indonesia. Dr. Murphy's most recently publications include an edited volume, Legacies of Engagement in Southeast Asia (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008), Indonesia Returns to the International Stage (Orbis, 2009), Toward a United States-Indonesia Comprehensive Partnership (Indonesian Quarterly,2009) and Beyond Balancing and Bandwagoning, Thailand Responds to China’s Rise (Asian Security, 2010). Her opinion pieces have been published in the Asia Times, PacNet Newsletter, opinionasia and the East Asia Forum, The Australian National University. Dr. Murphy is currently writing a book examining the impact of democratization on Indonesian foreign policy. She is also conducting research on the impact of climate change on Indonesia, and the politics of health governance in Southeast Asia. She received her PhD in political science from Columbia University.

Expertise: Asian Strategic Challenges: Intra-Asia and US-Asia; international relations in Asia, and US foreign policy toward the countries of Southeast Asia; Political change in Indonesia and Thailand

 

Ahmad Nader Nadery

Ahmad Nader Nadery is a Commissioner at the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. He represented Afghan Civil Society at the UN peace talks for Afghanistan in the Bonn Conference 2001. Mr. Nadery works also as the Chairperson of Fair and Free Election Foundation of Afghanistan, he is a member of the Steering Committee of Citizens Against Terror and member of advisory board to Open Society Institute (OSI) Afghanistan programs. He has written extensively on politics and human rights in Afghanistan and is a member of the Board of Editors of the Oxford Journal on Transitional Justice. He served as Spokesperson for the national assembly (Loya Jerga) in 2002. Prior to his appointment at the AIHRC he worked as country director for the international human rights law group (Global Rights). Mr. Nadery won several international awards and was recognized as an "Asian Hero" by Time magazine in 2004. He was recognized as 21 Young Asia Leader's by the Asia Society and the World Economic Forum recognized him as Young Global Leader (YGL) of 2008. He studied law and political sciences at the Kabul University and earned his masters degree on International Affairs from George Washington University.

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Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

@sharmeenochinoy | website

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is an Emmy award winning film producer and journalist who has worked on 14 films for major networks in the United States and Britain including CNN, PBS, Channel 4 (U.K.) CBC, Arte and the Discovery channel. Amongst other honors, her work has earned her The Alfred I. Dupont Award, The Livingston Award, The Overseas Press Club Award, The American Women in Radio and Television Award, The One World Media Award and the Banff TV Rockie Award. Sharmeen’s work has taken her to over 10 countries around the world where she has worked with refugees, women’s advocate groups and human rights defenders. In 2007, after living outside of Pakistan for more than a decade, Sharmeen helped found The Citizens Archive of Pakistan, a non-profit, volunteer organization that works with thousands of underprivileged children to inculcate critical thinking skills and instill sense of pride in them about their history and identity. Born in Karachi, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy graduated from Smith College with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Government, and went to complete two Master’s Degrees from Stanford University in International Policy Studies and Communication.

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Jacob Park

website

Professor Jacob Park, associate professor of business and public policy at Green Mountain College since 2002, specializes in the teaching and research of global environment and business strategy, corporate social responsibility, business ethics, and community-based entrepreneurship and innovation. A former financial journalist with Fortune magazine, global environmental policy advisor to Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and a United Nations research specialist on Asian environmental and urban development issues, he worked as a senior research consultant and Japanese and Asian equity specialist in the Governance and Socially Responsibility Investment Group of ISIS Asset Management, a London-based investment company. An editorial/review board member of the Journal of Corporate Citizenship, Business Strategy and the Environment and Greener Management International, his most recent book is the Ecology of the New Economy: Sustainable Transformation of Global Information Technology, Communication, and Electronics Industries (Greenleaf Publishing, 2002) and he is currently working on editing two other books, Sustainable Global Governance, and Ecological Modernization & Asia-Pacific.

Expertise: Social innovation and entrepreneurship; Business and sustainable development/resource scarcity issues; Energy and climate change; Corporate environmental and social responsibility

 

Sheridan Prasso

website

Sheridan Prasso is an Asia specialist and author with more than two decades of experience in writing about and analyzing the region. Currently she is based in Hong Kong as an Editor-at-Large for the Asia-Pacific region at Bloomberg News, specializing in in-depth coverage, particularly of China, India, and Japan, for all outlets including the website, terminals, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Bloomberg Markets magazines. She is the author of The Asian Mystique: Dragon Ladies, Geisha Girls & Our Fantasies of the Exotic Orient, a critically acclaimed book that probes the origins of Western stereotypes about Asia, particularly women. As an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, she recently co-authored a book on international finance. She has consulted on media development in countries such as Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Turkey, and edited the Invest in Kazakhstan 2010 guide.  Sheridan was previously a Contributing Editor at Fortune magazine, Asia Editor and Senior News Editor at Business Week; and Cambodia Bureau Chief and an Asia Regional Correspondent in Hong Kong for Agence France-Presse (AFP). She has lived in China as a Knight International Press Fellow, and in Japan as a US-Japan Foundation Media Fellow.

Expertise: China and Taiwan; Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma); Kazakhstan; Japan, India; finance, banking, travel industry, media, women's issues.

 

Simran Sethi

@simransethi | website

Simran Sethi is a journalist and associate professor at the University of Kansas School of Journalism and Mass Communications. Sethi is also the founding host/writer of Sundance Channel’s environmental programming The Green and the creator of the Sundance web series The Good Fight, highlighting global environmental justice efforts and grassroots activism. Sethi is currently writing a book on psychological barriers to environmental engagement and is a contributing author to Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy. Named the number six "Eco-hero of the planet" by the UK's Independent and an "environmental messenger" by Vanity Fair, Simran has contributed numerous segments in video media. She is committed to a redefinition of environmentalism that includes voices from the prairie, the inner city and the global community.

Expertise: Asian Strategic Issues: Economics; Environment: Sustainable Cities; Sustainable business practices; life cycle analysis; consumer movements to be more environmentally-friendly, environmental justice; renewable energy and energy efficiency; socially-responsible investments; personal consumption and sustainability; media

 

Shen Dingli

Dr. Shen Dingli is the Executive Dean of Fudan University’s Institute of International Studies and Director of the university's Center for American Studies. He is also the founder and Director of China’s first non-government-based Program on Arms Control and Regional Security at Fudan University. He is on Fudan University's Committee of International Exchange and Cooperation, and a Shanghai Ambassador for Conference appointed by Shanghai Municipality Government. Dr. Shen is Vice President of Chinese Association of South Asian Studies, and Vice President of Shanghai Association of International Studies. Outside China, he is a member of IISS, Global Council of The Asia Society, and is on USCI Board of Scholars and a number of other international organizations. He has been a Visiting Professor of Washington University in St. Louis, University of Virginia (Semester at Sea program) and Colorado College. He edits Fudan American Review, and is on the editorial board of World Economy and International Politics (China), Journal of Contemporary China (U.S.), Journal of East Asian Studies (U.S.), China Security (U.S.) etc. He was one of a team of 40 (but the sole Chinese member) who advised Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan on strategic panning for his second term.

Expertise: Asian strategic issues; U.S.-Asia; China-U.S. relations; Arms control and disarmament; Nuclear weapons policy of the United States and China; Regional nonproliferation issues; Defense and foreign policy of China and the U.S.

 

Susan Shirk

Dr. Susan Shirk is Director of the University of California system-wide Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, and Ho Miu Lam Professor of China and Pacific Affairs in the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego. Previously, Dr. Shirk was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs with responsibility for the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia (1997-2000). In 2008 09, Dr. Shirk was an Arthur Ross Fellow at the Asia Society in New York City. In 1993, Dr. Shirk founded and continues to lead the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD), an unofficial "track-two" forum for discussions of security issues among defense and foreign ministry officials and academics from the United States, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea, and North Korea. Dr. Shirk is the author of: China: Fragile Superpower; How China Opened Its Door: The Political Success of the PRC’s Foreign Trade and Investment Reforms; The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China; and Competitive Comrades: Career Incentives and Student Strategies in China. In fall 2009, she co-authored an Asia Society task force report, North Korea Inside-Out: The Case for Economic Engagement.

Expertise: Asian Strategic Challenges: Hotspots and US-Asia; China and North Korea: Hotspots, Economics, US-Asia Relations

 

Simon Tay

Simon SC Tay LL.B Hons (National University of Singapore) LL.M (Harvard) is a public intellectual and adviser on political and economic issues. He teaches international law and public policy at the National University of Singapore and is concurrently chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, a non-governmental think tank that represents Singapore in the influential ASEAN-ISIS network of regional think tanks. For 2009, he was with the Asia Society in New York, as Schwartz Fellow, directing a Task Force report on US-Asia relations under the Obama administration. From 2002-08, he chaired the National Environment Agency, the country’s major agency for environmental protection. Prior to that, he was a Nominated Member of the Singapore Parliament (1997 – 2001) and led public consultations on Singapore in the 21st century, the national concept plan, and the Singapore Green Plan 2012. He has also directed the Singapore Volunteers Overseas, the country’s “peace corps”. In 2006, he received the Public Service Medal (Pingat Bakti Masyarakat, PBM), a Singaporean National Day award. He was a visiting professor to teach at Yale, Harvard Law School and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He has spoken or chaired events for international business meetings including the World Economic Forum.

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Jeffrey Wasserstrom

@jwassers

Jeffrey Wasserstrom is a Professor of History and chair of the department at University of California-Irvine, where he also serves as the Editor of the Journal of Asian Studies. He is a widely published author whose most recent book, China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, was published by Oxford University in 2010. His next book, Chinese Characters: Fast-Changhing Lives in a Fast-Changing Land, a co-edited anthology, is due out in the fall from the University of California Press. He is also a frequent contributor to newspapers (e.g., the Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Times, the Asian edition of The Wall Street Journal), magazines (including both TIME and Newsweek), blogs (such as The Huffington Post and The New York Times’ “Room for Debate”), and literary reviews (such as London’s Times Literary Supplement and the Asian Review of Books). He is a co-founder of The China Beat blog/electronic magazine, a contributing editor of Current History and The Los Angeles Review of Books, and he has been a guest on American National Public Radio’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered. He has been a consultant for two prize-winning documentaries and been interviewed about U.S.-China relations by Al Jazeera, Australian television, the BBC, and CNN.

Expertise: Chinese history; Contemporary China; U.S.-China relations; Global cities

 

Thom Woodroofe

@thomwoodroofe | website

Thom Woodroofe is a freelance foreign affairs analyst based in Australia. Commentating in print and on television, Thom has contributed on the ground from hotspots such as Burma during parliamentary elections, communist Cuba under Castro, and on the Middle East peace process from inside The West Bank. He has interviewed both the current and former Prime Minister of Australia and spent time travelling with the Foreign Minister for a profile piece. Thom has worked for both sides of politics overseas: in the United States Congress for former Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi and for former Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in California. In 2009, Thom was recognised as the Young Victorian of the Year for his work in establishing Left Right Think-Tank. He has previously been named one of Melbourne’s 100 Most Influential People by The Melbourne Magazine, one of the region’s leading young people by Asia Society, and one the world’s emerging security leaders by the St. Gallen Symposium in Switzerland. Thom holds a Bachelor of Arts (Global) from Monash University and a First Class Honours degree from The University of Melbourne where he is currently reading for his Masters.

Expertise:  The Asia Pacific; U.S.-Asia relations, Australian foreign policy; Governance - global and regional; Multilateral forums and architecture; Young people and foreign affairs

 

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