Board of Directors

Building educational programs and promoting the preservation of cultural heritage.

has national and international experience in higher education, administration and public diplomacy. Drawing on experience in China at leading Chinese government institutions, Dr. Mary Phillips teaches and is engaged in research that explores the relationship between intellectual history and social change in Modern China. She specializes in Asian cultures and cross-cultural issues related to traditional belief systems and teaches comparative intellectual history, critical thinking and analysis. Author of works which appear in English, Chinese and Tibetan, she makes presentations sponsored by Chinese institutions. She began teaching at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and then began to lecture and run training programs at a broad range of institutions including the China Tibetology Research Center. She received a B.A. from the University of Toronto in Near Eastern Studies, and a M.A. and Ph.D. from the American University in sociology with an area of concentration in Chinese intellectual history from the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University.  She became a research affiliate of the Harvard University Asia Center in 2002.

a sociologist by training, has dealt with American and overseas academic institutions from two complementary perspectives.  Holder of a doctorate from Columbia University, she has a long background in teaching and research, both in the U.S. and in Sierra Leone, Morocco and Nigeria. In a shorter, second career, she spent some six years with the U.S. State Department, specializing in Public Diplomacy and working intensively with foreign audiences and contacts in Sudan, Mauritania and Chad.  This blend of academic and diplomatic experience has yielded an unusual depth of experience in dealing with overseas students and academics, organizing programs and exchanges, and collaborating with officials, civil society actors, and the press.  

is a Senior Foreign Service Officer at the United States Department of State. He was Executive Director of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, and is currently assigned to the Bureau of African Affairs.  He has served in Copenhagen, Madrid, Pretoria, Port-au-Prince, Yaounde, and in the Human Resources and African and European Bureaus in Washington. In Washington he was Cultural Coordinator in the Africa Bureau, and Program and Coordination Officer for the European Bureau. Whitman authored over 40 articles on culture and travel that have been published in Research in African Literatures, The Foreign Service Journal, The Strad, The New York Times, and others. His books include works on the African oral tradition, Haiti, the City of Madrid, and European stringed instruments. Kaidara is a study of a 1000-year-old African epic folk tale. Whitman was a Fulbright lecturer in Brazzaville. He holds a BA from Oberlin College and a PhD in French Literature from Brown University.

is the former Chief of the Asian Division at the Library of Congress and Dean Emeritus of Ohio University Libraries. In his nearly half-century library career, he worked in various library administrative positions at the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, Asian Institute of Technology (in Bangkok, Thailand, 1968-1975, under the sponsorship of the U.S. Agency for International Development), Colorado State University, and Ohio University (1978-1999). He was also a Visiting Distinguished Scholar at OCLC from 2000 to 2002 and a Fulbright Senior Specialist at the Department of Library and Information Science, Chiang Mai University in Thailand (September/October 2001). Dr. Lee has authored or co-authored 5 books and 80 papers. Since 1970, he has served as a library consultant and lecturer in many countries in the Asian Pacific area. He was also a consulting or visiting professor at many leading universities in China and Taiwan. Among the many awards he received are the 1983 Outstanding Administrator of Ohio University, the 1983 CALA’s Distinguished Services Award, the 1987 Ohio Librarian of the Year, the 1991 ALA John Ames Humphrey Award for significant contributions to International Librarianship, the 1991 APALA’s Distinguished Services Award, and the 1999 Ohio Hall of Fame Librarian. Upon his retirement in 1999, Ohio University named a new library building after him as the Hwa-Wei Lee Library Annex and the first floor of the main library as Hwa-Wei Lee Center for International Collections. After his recent retirement from the Library of Congress, his significant accomplishments were introduced and entered into the Congressional Record on April 10, 2008. Hwa-Wei Lee was born in China, did his undergraduate studies in Taiwan, and completed his MEd, MLS and PhD degrees at the University of Pittsburgh.

Advisory Board

holds an M.A. from The University of Chicago and an M.Phil from the London School of Economics.  After her early years in Japan and India, she worked as an energy analyst and contributed the Centre for Global Energy Studies in London, Impact Consulting, Brussels and Cambridge Energy Research Associates, Paris publications. While in Europe she wrote on energy and investment issues for the Saudi Arabian Al Eqtisadiah, The International Arab Business Daily.  From 1998 to 2002 she was the Moscow representative for PlanEcon, a Washington, DC-based research and consulting firm which specialized in the economies of the former Soviet republics and Central and Eastern Europe, and also contributed articles and analyses to the PlanEcon Energy Report.  As a lecturer at the American Institute of Business and Economics in Moscow, she taught Macroeconomics to Russian MBA students with a special emphasis on the oil and gas sector in the international economy.  In 2003 she moved to Beijing, China where she worked as a researcher and consultant on energy and environmental issues.  She made presentations to academics at the Chinese Academy of Social Science and to visiting business executives, took part in a scenario simulation exercise at the Central Party School and gave several interviews to the international media including CNN. In 2007 she returned to Europe and she is now based in Brussels. 

practices corporate and immigration law to assist U.S. and Chinese companies. Born in Beijing, China, Runan holds law degrees from the Beijing Foreign Affairs College on international private law and China Lawyers Training Center and a LLM from the Washington College of Law, the American University.  She is also a 1991 graduate of Carlow University for the business administration program. Ms. Zhang was admitted to the Washington, D.C., Maryland and New York State bars, as well as the Federal Court in the District of Columbia. Prior to establishing her own law firm in Washington, DC, Ms. Zhang was a foreign law associate with Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP and Dickstein, Shapiro, Morin & Oshinsky, LLP where she handled international business transactions, and was a foreign trade representative for China’s third largest steel company.  

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