Biographies

Jaishri Abichandani is a conceptual artist born in Bombay and currently living in Brooklyn. She has exhibited her work internationally at various venues including P.S.1/MOMA, the Queens Museum of Art, and Exit Art in New York, Nature Morte & Gallery Chemould in India, Avanthay Contemporary in Switzerland, the Castle of Good Hope in South Africa, amongst other locations. She has been the recipient of the Enfoco New Works Photography Award and the Urban Artists Award, acquiring a Masters in Visual Arts from Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK in 2005.  Jaishri is the Founder of the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective, (www.sawcc.org), in New York and London. She is also the curator of Sultana’s Dream at Exit art and the co-curator of Fatal Love: South Asian American Art Now and Queens International 2006 Everything All at Once at the Queens Museum of Art where she recently exhibited a solo project  entitled Reconciliations. A current curatorial project  Exploding the Lotus is on view at the Arts and Culture Center of Hollywood Florida on view until May 25th 2008.

Noilyn Absamis-Mendoza joined the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families in March 2008. She will lead the Health Advocacy Project to improve language access, cultural competence, and health care affordability. Among her major responsibilities is Project CHARGE (Coalition for Health Access to Reach Greater Equity), a pan-Asian network of 14 partners aiming to expand financial access to health care. Previously, Noilyn was the Deputy Director of Outreach and Programs for the NYU Center for the Study of Asian American Health (CSAAH). She developed and oversaw CSAAH's key outreach, educational, and community-based initiatives, including coordinating the development of 7 ethnic-specific community health needs assessments; partnering with 60+ community based organizations, health providers, academic institutions, businesses, media, advocacy groups, and government; and coordinating over 40 training opportunities for staff and community partners. In 2004, Noilyn co-founded the Kalusugan Coalition, a Filipino health collaborative, where she currently serves as the Board Chair. Noilyn has also served as a board member or advisor for: the API Caucus of APHA, CACF's Action Council, Peace of Heart Choir, NIH/NHLBI Filipino Healthy Heart, Healthy Family Initiative, and St. Peter's College Center for Personal Development. She was a recipient of the New American Leaders Fellowship Program and the United Way of NYC Nonprofit Leadership Development Institute's Senior Fellow Program. She received a BA in Environmental Analysis & Design from the University of California, Irvine, and an MPH, Sociomedical Sciences from the Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health.

Meena Alexander was born in India, raised there and in Sudan. At eighteen she went to England to study. She has a special interest in poetry and poetics; questions of gender, migration and memory. She teaches in the Ph.D. program in English at the Graduate Center and the MFA program at Hunter College. She has a BA Honors from Khartoum University in English and French and a PhD from Nottingham University in English Studies. Her scholarly work includes two books on English Romanticism; her work in poetics includes a book of poems and essays The Shock of Arrival: Reflections on Postcolonial Experience. Her volumes of poetry include Stone Roots ; House of a Thousand Doors ; River and Bridge; Illiterate Heart (winner of the PEN Open Book Award); Raw Silk ; and two chapbooks, each a single long poem: The Storm: A Poem in Five Parts, and Night-Scene,  the Garden. Her new collection Quickly Changing River will appear in February 2008.  She is the editor of Indian Love Poems. Her first poems were published when she was a teenager in Sudan, in Arabic translation and much of her work is concerned with migration and its impact on the writer's subjectivity, and with the sometimes violent events that compel people to cross borders. She has read at Poetry International London, Struga Poetry Evenings, Poetry Africa, Calabash Festival, Harbor Front Festival, Sahitya Akademi, India  and other international gatherings. She is the author of the memoir Fault Lines (chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of the year) and has published two novels. She has received awards from the Fulbright Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Arts Council of England, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council of Learned Societies,  National Council for Research on Women,  New York State Council on the Arts,  New York Foundation for the Arts,  Ledig-Rowohlt Foundation; she was in residence at the MacDowell Colony and has held  the Martha Walsh Pulver residency for a poet at Yaddo. She has been a Visiting Fellow at the Sorbonne (Paris IV); Frances Wayland Collegium Lecturer at Brown University; Writer in Residence at the Center for American Culture Studies at Columbia University; University Grants Commission Fellow, Kerala University; Writer in Residence, National University of Singapore. In 1998 she was a Member of the Jury for the Neustadt International Award in Literature. She has been named an Elector, American Poets Corner, Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.

Julie Azuma is the founder of online retailer Different Roads to Learning. Azuma, who had previously worked in the fashion industry, saw an opportunity to start a business to help other families while working at home. Azuma's formula is simple: personal attention to her customers, many of whom are parents who seek her advice and support as they face the challenges of raising autistic children. She also serves as the chair of the group Asian Women in Business, which she helped found.

Dorothy Chin-Brandt is an Acting Justice of the New York State Supreme Court. She received an LL.M. degree from the Harvard Law School in 1975. She is an active member of Queens Country Women's Bar Association. In addition, she has been published in the Autumn Volume of 1997 in the Harvard Women's Law Journal, in 1978 in the Boston College International and Comparative Law Journal and in the Better Business Council Publication of 1985. Recipient of countless awards and recognition from world-wide Asian American groups as well as US and community and legal organizations, she is currently presiding at Queens Supreme Court in Kew Gardens, New York.

Linda T. Chin, Esq. has practiced law for over twenty years.  She served as the Counsel to the President at Hunter College for over 16 years, practiced corporate law at Con Edison and served as General Counsel for the New York State Judicial Commission on Minorities.  Presently, Ms. Chin is an Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at St. John's University where she teaches Employment Law, Social Security Disability Law, and Elder Law. Professor Chin received her Bachelor of Arts Degree from the City College of New York and her Juris Doctor from Brooklyn Law School.

Margaret M. Chin joined the Sociology Department as an Assistant Professor in September 2001. Prior to coming to Hunter College, she was a Social Science Research Council Post Doctoral Fellow in International Migration.   She received her BA in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University and her MA and PhD in Sociology from Columbia University.

Her research interests focus on new immigrants, working poor families, and race and ethnicity.   Professor Chin uses qualitative and comparative methods in her research. Her publications include, Sewing Women: Immigrants in the New York City Garment Industry (Columbia University Press 2005), "Moving On: Chinese Garment Workers after 9/11" published in a volume entitled Wounded City, edited by Nancy Foner (Russell Sage 2005). Prof Chin has also published two articles with Katherine S. Newman, "High Stakes, Hard Choices," in the The American Prospect, Summer 2002, and "High Stakes: Time Poverty, Testing and the Children of the Working Poor," in the Journal of Qualitative Sociology, Spring 2003. Professor Chin was a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Junior Faculty Career Grant Recipient in 2004-05 and was also a Gender Equity Project Associate from 2002-2004. She has taught courses in qualitative research methods, the family, and the second generation experience of Asians, Latinos and Blacks.

Vishakha N. Desai is president and CEO of Asia Society, a global educational organization dedicated to deepening connections among the peoples of Asia and the United States. She sets the directions for the Society’s diverse set of programs—in the areas of policy, business, arts, culture and education—throughout the Society’s network of centers in the U.S. and in Asia. She is a frequent speaker and commentator in the media addressing cultural, social, educational, business and policy trends and their implications for the U.S.-Asia relationship and Asian regional ties.

Appointed president in 2004, Dr. Desai conceptualized and presided over the organization’s 50th anniversary celebrations in 2006, marked by high-profile activities and expansive fundraising initiatives. As a result of these efforts, the Society is expanding the scope and scale of its activities, particularly in Asia, including a new India Centre in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) which opened in 2006 and planned multi-million dollar physical facilities in Hong Kong and Houston.

Prior to her appointment as president, Dr. Desai served as Asia Society’s Senior Vice President and Director of the Museum and Cultural Programs. In this position, she managed the Society’s $40 million renovation of its New York City headquarters. As Museum Director, Dr. Desai built an international reputation for introducing contemporary Asian art to a broad audience and using it to illuminate historical trends and their influence on the development of society. A scholar of classical Indian art, she has published numerous catalogues and scholarly articles and is widely recognized for conceiving innovative exhibitions of traditional Asian art within strong cultural contexts. She was also at the forefront of the Society’s integration of Asian American issues into its public programming.

Prior to joining the Asia Society in 1990, Dr. Desai was a curator at The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She also taught at the University of Massachusetts, Boston University, Columbia University, and Williams College.

Dr. Desai holds a B.A. in political science from Bombay University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Asian Art History from the University of Michigan. The recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, Dr. Desai was awarded an honorary doctorate from Susquehanna University in 1996. She was also awarded the Asian American of the Year Award by the University of Massachusetts, and by Asian Americans for Equality, and is a recipient of the National Institute of Social Sciences Gold Medal.

Dr. Desai serves on the boards of The Brookings Institution, Citizens Committee for New York City, Asian University for Women, and the New York City Advisory Commission for Cultural Affairs. She served as the President of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) in 1998-99, and was on the Board from 1995-2000. She has also served on the Boards of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, LEAP (Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics), the South Asian Council of the Association of Asian Studies, the College Art Association, ArtTable, and the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. 

Dr. Desai is married to Robert B. Oxnam, a China scholar, who was Asia Society’s president from 1981 to 1992.

Yumiko Fukuda, LMSW was born and raised in Japan, and graduated from Columbia University School of Social Work.  She completed CDC/ASPH Institute for Prevention Leadership in 2002.  Joined APICHA (Asian & Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV and AIDS, Inc.) in 1994 as a volunteer working with Limited English Speaking A&PI clients living with AIDS.  Currently serving as the director of programs, overseeing all agency services and contracts:  HIV primary care clinic, support services, HIV testing, and HIV prevention.  Involved in HIV related policy advisory bodies:  New York City HIV Prevention Planning Group and  NY Statewide AIDS Services Delivery Consortium Advisory Group. APICHA provides comprehensive HIV services including free HIV testing that provides result in 30 minutes, Client Services and Medical Care for people living with HIV/AIDS and HIV prevention education.  The new office is located on 400 Broadway.

Umir Ghosh-Dastidar obtained her Ph.D. from the Department of Mathematical Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ in May, 2003. Currently Dr. Ghosh-Dastidar is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics department of New York City College of Technology, CUNY. Her research interests are mathematical optimization and modeling infectious diseases. She received PSC CUNY research award, SLOAN grant, CURM grant, and Constance A. Murray Women’s Scholarship as a graduate student. She attends and presents in numerous conferences and workshops for professional improvement.

Ginny Gong is an accomplished educator, motivational speaker, experienced human resource administrator and trainer, talk show host, and highly respected community leader. Frequently requested to be a keynote speaker, panelist, or facilitator, Ginny has addressed groups numbering from a few to a crowd of thousands. Employed as the Director for the Office of Community Use of Public Facilities in Montgomery County, Maryland, Ginny is responsible for promoting and coordinating the community’s use of the county’s public facilities as well as managing its multi-million Enterprise Fund. Prior to that, she was an administrator/educator in school systems for more than two decades. Her experience ranged from that of secondary school teacher to recruiter of teachers to administrator of EEO and compliance issues of a major school system. Ginny has played a seminal role in the emergence of the Asian Pacific American community locally and nationally. She has served, and currently serves, in leadership positions on Boards and Commissions, including Board of Advisors to University of Maryland Systems, Montgomery Community Television, Leadership Montgomery, The Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium, The Arts and Humanities Cultural Plan Steering Committee, MC Police Chief Advisory Council, and others. In 1996, Ginny was nominated to the Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame and subsequently recognized as one of Maryland’s distinguished “Women Leading the Way.” She is host of her own weekly talk show series “Ginny’s…where East meets West”, presently in its eighth year. Additionally, she is completing an autobiography about growing up in the back of a Chinese laundry entitled "From Ironing Board to Corporate Board: An Immigrant’s Story." A significant part of Ginny's community involvement has been her long-term commitment to OCA, a national pan-Asian Pacific American organization with 80 chapters and affiliates dedicated to advancing social justice and civic involvement, for which she is currently serving her fourth term as National President.

Jennifer Hayashida is Program Coordinator of the Asian American Studies Program at Hunter College. In addition to her work as an educator, she is also a poet, essayist, and translator: recent publications include a translation of Swedish poet Fredrik Nyberg's A Different Practice (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2007) and an essay on neoliberal prehistories in 1920s Sweden, "No More Strike Anywhere" (Rethinking Marxism, April 2008).

Jay Hershenson is Secretary of the Board of Trustees and Vice Chancellor for University Relations of The City University of New York (CUNY). He coordinates the University's governmental, media, and community relations programs as well as development and CUNY-TV. He previously served as Executive Director of the Committee for Public Higher Education, Regional Director for New York City of the New York Public Interest Research Group, Inc., and as a Unit Director for the United Fund of New York. Hershenson's prior state-wide and national public service includes chairing the New York State Standardized Testing Advisory Board; membership on presidential and gubernatorial Task Forces on Education; and appointment by the Governor as one of five Commissioners on the Temporary Commission on the Future of Postsecondary Education. He serves on numerous committees and boards of civic, community, and educational organizations. Hershenson received an M.A. in Urban Studies and a B.A. in Communication, Arts and Science and University Administration at Queens College, CUNY.

Hiroko Karan was born in Osaka, Japan and came to the U.S.A. as s graduate student. Dr. Karan received her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Brown University. After postdoctoral positions at Fels Research Institute at Temple University Medical School and the Biophysics Laboratory at New York University, she joined the faculty of chemistry at Medgar Evers College, City University of New York in 1980. Professor of Chemistry, she has served as Chairperson of the Department of Physical and Computer Sciences, Assistant Dean and Dean of the School of Science, Health and Technology for the past twelve years and since September, 2004, she is serving as Executive Director of Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP).

For the past fifteen years, Dr. Karan has engaged in research on enzyme biosensors containing polymeric electron transfer systems and has published, presented and lectured extensively in the area. A recipient of research grants, she has been serving as a consultant for National Institutes of Health as a proposal reviewer. An educator, she has been an advocate for women and minorities in science and has mentored many students during her tenure at Medgar Evers College, many of whom have pursued careers in Science, Medicine and other Health Related Professions and actively serve the community. She established the Health Science Research Assistance Center (HSRAC) in the School of Science, Health and Technology in 1997 supported by the Extramural Associates Research Development Award funded by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to encourage, assist and enhance faculty research in the areas of biomedical, natural, environmental and behavioral sciences and obtaining external funds.

Dr. Karan is an active participating member of many professional organizations. She serves as a board member, officer and elected councilor of New York Section of the American Chemical Society and the Association for Women in Science. She is a member of the Minority Affairs of the American Chemical Society. She was recognized for her outstanding services by the New York Section of American Chemical Society, as an outstanding women scientist by the Association for Women in Science, New York Metropolitan Chapter, as a Brooklyn Women of Essence for her contribution in Science Education by the Consolidated Edison Women History Month Program. She is a co-founder of Medgar Evers College Annual Environmental Issues Conference which had celebrated its 13th annual conference in March 2008. She currently serves as co-Vice Chair of Asian American/Asian Research Institute at CUNY.

William P. Kelly was appointed president of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York on July 1, 2005. From 1998 through June 2005, he served as the Graduate Center’s provost and senior vice president, a tenure that was marked by the recruitment of a remarkable cadre of internationally renowned scholars to the school’s faculty.

A distinguished American literature scholar and an expert on the works of James Fenimore Cooper, Dr. Kelly’s books include Plotting America’s Past: Fenimore Cooper and the Leatherstocking Tales (Southern Illinois University Press), and a work in progress, Exhibiting Nature: Scientific Culture and The American Museum of Natural History.

Dr. Kelly graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1971, where he won the David Bowers Prize in American Studies. He was named Outstanding Graduate Student in English at Indiana University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1976. Dr. Kelly also holds a diploma in intellectual history from Cambridge University and in 1980 received a Fulbright Fellowship to France, where he subsequently became visiting professor at the University of Paris.

On the faculty of CUNY’s Queens College from 1976 to 1998, he was named Queens College’s Golden Key Honor Society Teacher of the Year in 1994. He was appointed concurrently to the faculty of the Graduate Center’s Ph.D. Program in English in 1986 and served as the program’s executive officer from 1996 to 1998.

Madhulika S. Khandelwal is Director of the Asian/American Center and Associate Professor in Urban Studies Department at Queens College, City University of New York.  She has taught Asian American Studies at a number of universities and has conducted research on contemporary Asian American communities.

Prof. Khandelwal’s main interests include immigrants, women, South Asian diaspora, Asian American communities, and multicultural issues in the United States.  Dr. Khandelwal’s ethnographic research on South Asian immigrant communities in the New York area has been published in her book Becoming American, Being Indian:  An Immigrant Community in New York City (Cornell University Press, 2002).

Born in India, Prof. Khandelwal was educated in both India and the United States and holds a Ph.D in History from Carnegie-Mellon University. Her academic career focuses on engaging diverse cultural and community issues and she has served on the boards of organizations such as National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (NAPALC), the Association for Asian American Studies, and Citylore. She is widely recognized for her community-oriented research and has been honored by  NYC Comptroller’s Office, Queens Women’s Center, Elmhurst Hospital Center, and community organizations such as Pragati, Nav Nirman, and SAYA! (South Asian Youth Action !).

Lisa Ko is a writer living in Brooklyn, NY. Her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in the Asian Pacific American Journal, Brooklyn Review, Bullfight Review, and Sassy. She has been awarded writing residencies at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts and the Paden Institute and Retreat for Writers of Color. Lisa is a web writer for the Independent Lens film series on PBS and a founding staff member of Hyphen, a magazine about Asian America for the culturally and politically savvy. A former New York Foundation for the Arts fiction fellow and a recipient of the Van Lier fellowship in fiction, she is currently completing No Street Like Home, a collection of linked short stories.

Kiyoka Koizumi, Ph.D., CHES, is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Health and Nutrition Sciences at Brooklyn College. Her research interest includes:  Health of the elderly in Japan, Mental Health care System in Japan, Reproductive Health of Japanese Women after the WWII, and Mental Health of the Immigrants in New York City.  She has been a member of the following professional organizations: Society for Public Health Education, American Public Health Association, American Alliance for Health Education, International Union for Health Education, as well as a member of the following community based non-profit organizations:  the Aging Committee of the Japanese American Association of New York, and Asian and Asian American Research Institute of New York.

Justin Leroy is a graduate student in Humanities and Social Thought at New York University. His research interests include hybridity, utopian/dystopian literature, and Asian American cultural production. He previously worked as a video editor for the MAVIN Foundation, the nation's largest mixed race advocacy organization, where he oversaw the production of the feature length documentary Chasing Daybreak.

Diana Li is an Assistant Vice President in Citi Corporate Operations and Technology Finance.  She has worked for Citi for almost 15 years.  She is the Co-Chair of the Citi Asian Pacific Heritage Network – NYC.  The mission of the Citi Asian Pacific Heritage Network - NYC is to increase awareness and sensitivity about Asian and Pacific Islander issues; increase Citi’s presence and contribution to the Asian and Pacific Islander communities in the NYC area; and foster a better understanding of the Asian and Pacific Islander cultures, including those of East, Central, South and South East Asia and the Pacific Islands.  The network currently has over 1,000 members.

Janet Liou-Mark received her Ph.D. in mathematics education from New York University.   Dr. Liou-Mark is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at New York City College of Technology, CUNY.  In addition to her teaching responsibilities, she is the Honors Scholars Program Coordinator for the college.  She is the faculty advisor for the Mathematics Club and was the charter advisor for the National Society for Collegiate Scholars, a national honor society and City Tech Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

Kimberly McKee, a graduate of the George Washington University, received her MSc Gender and Social Policy degree from the London School of Economics.  Her MSc dissertation “Gendering Intercountry Adoption: Why Does Korea Continue Its Participation as a ‘Sending Country’?” examined the Republic of Korea as a case study in the relationship between “sending” and “receiving” countries in transnational adoption flows.  Her writings have been seen on Black Information Link and in the anthology Yell-OH Girls! edited by Vickie Nam.  She currently works for the Governors Committee on Scholastic Achievement in New York and the Third Wave Foundation.

Jin Kim Montclare received her undergraduate BS degree in chemistry from Fordham University, Bronx NY in 1997.  She then went to Yale University, New Haven, CT as a NSF predoctoral fellow and earned her PhD in Bioorganic Chemistry in 2003. 

She then became an NIH postdoctoral fellow at California Institute of Technology from 2003-2005 in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.  From 2005, she began her position as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Sciences at Polytechnic University.  She also has an adjunct position at SUNY Downstate Medical School in Department of Biochemistry. Her research is in the area of chemical biology and bioengineering with a particular focus on engineering proteins bearing unnatural amino acids.  She has received the Wechsler Award for Excellence, AFOSR Young Investigator Award and is an Othmer Junior Fellos.

Joyce Moy is Interim Executive Director of the Asian American / Asian Research Institute, and Director of Business and Community Development at LaGuardia Community College. She is the founding director of the NYS Regional Small Business Development Center at LaGuardia College, which provides one-on-one counseling to start-up and existing businesses, and has established programs in financial literacy education and international business. She has worked to develop programming responsive to immigrant, women and minority business owners, and connects them to business and educational opportunities that enhance their economic well-being. She has taught business law and taxation at Queens College, the CUNY School of Law, and at Cornell University School of Law. She is a former practicing attorney with over 15 years experience in corporate law, franchising, taxation and commercial areas. She is member of the Board of Directors of the US Pan-Asian American and Sunnyside Chambers of Commerce, Queens Borough President's General Assembly and a member of the Flushing Hospital Community Advisory Board, and the Taskforce for the Development of Willets Point. She is the recent recipient of the Woman of Excellence award from the NY Women's Chamber of Commerce. Ms. Moy received her B.A. from SUNY at Stony Brook, and her J.D. from Hofstra University School of Law.

Sunita S. Mukhi, is a cultural manager, performance scholar, and artist. Her early education was from St. Scholastica’s College, Manila, Philippines. She has a B.A. in Behavioral Sciences and in Literature from De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines; an M.A. degree in Interdisciplinary Studies in the Social  Sciences from San Francisco State University; and a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University.

Born and bred in the Philippines, having short stints in Mumbai and Singapore, and having lived the last 21 years in the United States, has provided Dr. Mukhi with an international understanding of migration and the global interconnectedness of peoples–a true product of the Manila Sindhi Diaspora.  As a cultural manager, Dr. Mukhi  continues to produce innovative programming in light of promoting a multi-faceted, intellectually sound and humane understanding of Asianness. She has presided over, participated in, and moderated numerous panel discussions, and given lectures and addresses on topics ranging from identity politics, performativity, arts, and the South Asian diaspora. She is also currently teaching at the Asian and Asian American Studies Department at Stony Brook University.

The courses she has developed as part of the faculty of the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies at Stony Brook University are Popular Indian Cinema and Culture, Peformance in Contemporary India, Desis in the Diaspora, and Presenting Asian/American Cultures Internship Program.
Her poems appear in the anthologies Desilicious: Sexy, Saucy, South Asian and Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America, her articles in Art Spiral, and Little India magazine and Cinevue. The essay "Underneath My Blouse Beats My Indian Heart: Indian Womanhood, Hindi Film Dance, and Nationalism" appears in A Patchwork Shawl (Rutgers University Press, 1998), and her most recent book is Doing the Desi Thing: Performing Indianness in New York City (Garland Publishing/Routledge, 2000). She also co-wrote a ground-breaking report  Engaging Asian America: Challenges and Opportunities (2004) for the Asia Society.  Just recently, her work 10 Poems was published in the Philippines.

She has performed, directed, and choreographed in university, community, and professional theatrical, television, and film productions in Manila, the United States, Mexico, and Singapore. She has also appeared in a number of short independent films. She is a story-teller and appears in numerous family day events at the Asia Society, the American Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum and other venues. Her most recent performance works are on sexuality, women’s power, the slipperiness of identity and other yearnings such as It’s a Drag Being an Indian Woman and Cornucopia. Liberty’s New Wedding Day is a tongue-in-cheek indictment against imperialism and terror. As a story-teller, she has composed and performed tales with dynamic women as central characters such as Kalahati, the Half-Girl, Butterfly and the Pin Man, Princess Guddi Saves NYC, and Brown Fox. White Tiger, among others.

James Muyskens is Queens College’s ninth president. During his tenure, Dr. Muyskens has successfully launched a review and updating of the college’s undergraduate General Education curriculum. He also added a number of new programs, including business administration, neuroscience, graphic design, and bioinformatics.His appointment to Queens College marked Dr. Muyskens’ return to the City University of New York. He began his career at Hunter College as an assistant professor of philosophy and moved through the ranks to full professor. He also served Hunter as chair of its Department of Philosophy and as Associate Provost and Acting Provost.

Manijeh Nasrabadi, a graduate of Brown University, received an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Hunter College in 2007. She is a contributor to About Face: 25 Women Write About What They See When They Look in the Mirror forthcoming from Seal Press in June. She is also a 2008 recipient of a Hedgebrook Writing Residency and is currently working on a memoir about becoming a part of her extended family in Iran. Jackson Heights, New York and her uncle's house in Tehran are where she feels at home.

Vaimoana Litia Makakaufaki Niumeitolu is an Artist (painter, poet, actor), Activist, Educator, Community Organizer & Leader..and then sum. Moana was born in Nukuíalofa, Tonga; raised in Provo and Orem, Utah and now lives in Harlem, New York (Uptown Baby!) She graduated from New York University in the Studio Art Program concentrating in Painting and earned the Ellen Stoekel Fellowship from Yale University. As a Graduate Student, she attended Columbia University in the Theatre Masters Program and then worked at the United Nations in NYC. She has performed her poetry and performance art at New York Cityís Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Bar 13, SOBís, Cantor Film Center, Bronx Museum, Locus Media Gallery, and SoMarts Gallery in San Francisco, California and Villa Natalia in Florence, Italy. Her first play, Tongue-in Paint, a full-length performance art event was performed at Dixon Place in New York City in April 2001 and her one act play, A Prayer for Tonga was produced and performed at Harvard Universityís Loeb Theatre in Feb. 2004 for the WINC Theatre Festival.

Niumeitolu has appeared in Ping Chong's Undesirable Elements (2000) that later turned into Secret History at the Ohio Theater, which was named one of the Best shows in New York City in 2001 and in Lee Nagrin's The Valley of Iao at La MaMa Theater, New York City (2000). Moana has taught Visual Arts, Theatre and Writing to youth in the South Bronx, Harlem, Brooklyn, Chelsea and the Lower East Side for the past 6 years and continues to teach and be active in raising awareness for Youth Rights and Education. Her paintings & drawings have been shown in New York City, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, Utah and Florence, Italy. She is the founder of Pasifika New York City, a nonprofit organization for Indigenous People of the Pacific Ocean on the East Coast.  www.mahinamovement.com

Harini Patel was born in India, and received her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry from Fordham University, Bronx, NY. Dr. Patel started her earlier  career  in the field of research in clinical biochemistry analyzing toxins  accumulation in kidney patients at Metropolitan Hospital then associated with New  York Medical College. She continued her further research in the same field as a Research Biochemist at Bronx Labanon Hospital Center. In 1996, she started teaching General Chemistry at Medgar Evers College (CUNY), Brooklyn , N.Y. Currently, she is a lecturer teaching chemistry for Health Science Profession. She has done research with under graduate students in Environmental Science  area that  involved analyzing trace metals such as lead, cadmium and copper in drinking water by an electrochemical method. She is a member of  New York Academy of Science and  American Chemical Society. She is also member of many museums and Asia Society located in NYC.

Suki Terada Ports is the founder and Executive Director of Family Health Project. She has helped create organizations that serve communities with distinct needs such as the Asian Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS (APICHA), the Minority Task Force on AIDS and Iris House, the first comprehensive center for women with HIV/AIDS in New York City. She is a founder of VOW (Voices of Women of Color Against HIV/AIDS) and a member of the planning committee for the first conference held in New York City discussing issues affecting women of color.

Zohra Saed is a Brooklyn-based Afghan American poet, educator and editor. She received her MFA in Poetry at Brooklyn College and is Doctoral Candidate in English at the City University of New York Graduate Center with an emphasis on Afghan American Literature and Art. She serves as Editor for Up-Set Press. an independent publishing house based in Brooklyn. She has given talks and performed her poetry at the American Museum of Natural History, the Asia Society, MTV, WBAI Radio, WNYC Radio and numerous university campuses. In 2007, Saed performed as part of Ping Chong's Undesirable Elements Show at the first National Asian American Theatre Festival. Her poetry/essays have been published in the following anthologies Cheers to Muses; Shattering the Stereotypes: Muslim Women Speak Out; Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War, Faith and Sexuality; This Day in the Life: Diaries of American Women; Cut Loose; and forthcoming in an anthology of Asian women published by Penguin India. Saed's academic focus is on West Asian; Central Asian; Muslim Diaspora Poetry, Film and Video.

Frank H. Shih is the Dean of Students, at CUNY School of Law where he supervises the offices of Career Planning and Student Affairs. His wide experience in higher education includes academic advising, admissions, student organizations, program development and enrollment and retention management. Before he came to CUNY, he served as the Director of the Center for Academic Advising and coordinated New Student Orientation and Peer Advising at the State University of New York at Stony Brook where he received the 1992 SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Professional Service.   Dr. Shih received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the New School for Social Research with research focus in transnationalism and globalization and its particular impact on international education.

Chanika Svetvilas, a Brooklyn based artist, has exhibited at the Queens Museum of Art, Lower East Side Tenement Museum, Rotunda Gallery and Denver International Airport. Chanika was the recipient of the Brooklyn Arts Council Regrant and was awarded a multimedia residency with Rotunda Gallery/Brooklyn Community Access Television (BCAT) in 2004 and was the artist-in-residence at Up-Set Press based in Brooklyn , NY in 2003. Her work can be seen in the NuyorAsian Anthology. Chanika is also a founding member of ThaiLinks (www.thailinks.org).

Betty Lee Sung is Professor Emerita and Chairperson of Asian American/ Asian Research Institute. She is the former Chairperson of Asian American Studies Department at City College, CUNY. Professor Sung has published innumerable articles and seven books on Chinese Americans including Mountain of Gold (1967), and Chinese American Manpower and Employment, which won an outstanding book of the year award for 1976.

Paz Tanjuaquio (Choreographer/Dancer/Visual Artist), born 1966 in the Philippines and raised in Illinois and California, has been creating dances in NYC since 1990. Her background in visual arts led her to further explore ideas in the form of movement and choreography. Her work described by The NY Times as “intelligently conceived, image-filled dance” has been presented in NY by the Danspace Project, Performance Space 122, Dance Theater Workshop, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Aaron Davis Hall, Symphony Space, Dixon Place, Joyce SoHo, Thelma Hill Performing Arts; and nationally at Godt-Cleary Projects in Las Vegas, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and Ohio University. Recent awards for her choreography include the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer Commissioning/USA, New York Foundation for the Arts BUILD Award, Asian American Arts Alliance, two Individual Artist Awards from Queens Council on the Arts, and Dance Theater Workshop’s Suitcase Fund where she participated in the Mekong Project’s Cambodia Creative Residency and artistic research travel in Vietnam. As a performer, she has been a dancer for Molissa Fenley since 1997. She has performed in the works of Marlies Yearby, Carl Hancock Rux, Maureen Fleming, Margarita Guergue, Clarinda Mac Low, Stephen Petronio, Kevin Wynn, Christalyn Wright, among others. She received her MFA in Dance from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and her BA in Visual Arts from University of California, San Diego. She is Co-Director of TOPAZ ARTS, Inc., a nonprofit arts organization which founded in 2000 with composer Todd Richmond to foster their collaborations and provide support for the performing and visual arts (www.topazarts.org).

Virginia M. Tong, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching in the School of Education at Hunter College.  She is also the former Coordinator of the M.A. TESOL Program.  Professor Tong’s scholarship and research focus on the sociocultural aspects of acculturation of generation 1.5 youth and the development of their cross-cultural identity.  Her research interests also include sociolinguistics (language and culture) and technology as it influences second culture and language learning. She has published articles in a variety of journals and made presentations on the acculturation of generation 1.5 students (young adolescents) and the dilemmas of an emerging cross-cultural identity.

As part of her ongoing research, Professor Tong participated in two initiatives related to the study of the economy and education in China.  The first initiative, “China in the 21st Century” examined the globalization of China, including the presence of Hong Kong.  As an invited education delegate to the “11th Sino-American Conference on Education: The Role of Higher Education in the 21st Century, Shanxi, China,” she investigated teacher preparation programs.  She is also a member of the Hunter College presidential initiative on China Strategies, a Hunter College and China collaboration.

At present, Professor Tong is working on a 3^rd research project that examines the influence of teachers on the sociocultural adjustments of Chinese immigrant high school students. She has recently obtained a CUNY Research Foundation Grant that will support a 4^th project that investigates the relationship between learning English and the group’s acculturation to America.  It is her belief that the concerns of this generation 1.5 group are often overlooked, and has devoted her efforts to giving voice to these issues.

Rhodora Ursua, MPH received a Masters in Public Health at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health with a focus in Population and Family Health in May 2004. At the Center, she is the Director of Project AsPIRE (Asian American Partnerships in Research and Empowerment), a community-based participatory research project that aims to improve health access and status for cardiovascular disease (CVD) among Filipino-Americans in New York City and New Jersey.  Ms.Ursua also serves as the Project Coordinator of Kalusugan Coalition which is a Filipino health coalition she co-founded and the community partner for Project AsPIRE.  In addition, Ms. Ursua oversees the Center's Center Student Investigator (CSI) Program and provides general support for the Center's activities.

Jyoti Venketraman, Assistant Research Scientist, holds an MPA in Health Policy and Management from NYU Wagner and degrees in Hospital Management and Microbiology from India. Prior to joining the Network full time, she worked as an intern at the Third Wave Foundation and at the New Jersey Immigration Policy Network on healthcare issues for women and immigrants. Her research interests are in the area of health, gender, race and poverty.

Bonnie Wong is the Director of Asian Women in Business, an organization Asian founded in 1995 to assist Asian women to realize their entrepreneurial potential. AWIB fills a vital need for women who need information, education and networking opportunities to start or expand their businesses. Since its opening reception in October 1995, it has sponsored many conferences and workshops, provided individualized technical assistance and served as a support mechanism for small business owners.

Ellen Young made New York State history when she was elected in 2006 as the first Asian-American woman to serve in the legislature. An immigrant from Taiwan who came to the U.S. at the ripe age of 25 with limited resources, Ellen immediately fell in love with the endless possibilities of America. Since then, she has become an immigrant success story and advocate for her community. Among her many achievements, she co-founded the Chinese-American Women's Association and was named as the first female Asian Auxiliary Police Officer in Queens. In her public service career, she has served as the President of the Chinese American Voters Association, the President of the Friends of Queens Library and the Vice Chair of the Flushing Asian Lunar New Year Celebration Committee. Before her election to the New York State Assembly, Ellen served the 22nd Assembly District as the District Administrator to Flushing's City Councilmember John Liu, the first Asian-American elected to the New York City Council.

Michelle Yu, a graduate of Manhattan College, is an on-air sports reporter for NY1 News and a member of the Asian American Journalism Association. She also served as a sports writer for College Sports Television and a reporter at Sports Illustrated for Kids Magazine. Michelle's first novel, China Dolls, co-authored with her cousin, Blossom Kan, was released in 2007 by St. Martin's Press.

Shuiqin Zhou was born in Zhejiang, China. She received her B.S. (1988) and M.S. (1991) degrees from Department of Chemistry, Xiamen University, P.R.China, and the Ph.D. (1996) degree from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in SUNY at Stony Brook during 1996-2000, and a Senior Chemist in Union Carbide/The Dow Chemical Company during 2000-2002 before she joined to CUNY-CSI.

Shuiqin Zhou is currently a Professor of the Department of Chemistry, College of Staten Island and Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her group is currently focusing on the researches of (1) nanostructured functional materials from fullerene derivatives and fullerene-polymer composites; (2) Responsive hydrogel particles and nanoshells for sensing and drug delivery applications; (3) supramolecular assembled polymer-lipid complexes as well as polyelectrolyte-surfactant complexes for personal care products. Her researches are supported by the National Science Foundation, the US Agency for International Development, New York state the Graduate Research and Technology Initiative grant, and a few industrial companies. She has published one world patent, 67 peer-reviewed research papers and book chapters. She has been serving as a peer reviewer for research articles of many journals, including Journal of American Chemical Society; Langmuir; Journal of Physical Chemistry B; Macromolecules; Biomacromolecules; Macromolecular Rapid Communication; Journal of Organic Chemistry; Journal of Applied Polymer Science; Polymer; Advanced Materials, Journal of Biomedical Materials Research. She is also a peer reviewer for many proposals from the Science Center Programs of the U.S. Department of State, the National Science Foundation, and the Petroleum Research Fund of the American Chemical Society.

Shuiqin Zhou is a member of American Chemical Society and American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Helen Zia is an award-winning journalist and scholar who has covered Asian American communities and social and political movements for decades. She is the author of Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People, a finalist for the prestigious Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize. President Bill Clinton quoted from Asian American Dreams at two separate speeches in the Rose Garden.

A second generation Chinese American, Zia has been outspoken on issues ranging from civil rights and peace to women's rights and countering hate violence and homophobia. In 1997, she testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on the racial impact of the news media. She traveled to Beijing in 1995 to the UN Fourth World Congress on Women as part of a journalists of color delegation. She has appeared in numerous news programs and films; her work on the 1980s Asian American landmark civil rights case of anti-Asian violence is documented in the Academy Award nominated film, "Who Killed Vincent Chin?" and she was profiled in Bill Moyers' PBS documentary, "Becoming American: The Chinese Experience."

Zia received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the Law School of the City University of New York for bringing important matters of law and civil rights into public view. She is a graduate of Princeton University's first graduating class of women. She quit medical school after completing two years, then went to work as a construction laborer, an autoworker, and a community organizer, after which she discovered her life's work as a writer.