The Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF) proudly announces that two AASF founding leaders will be honored at The Power of Us: AAPI Trailblazers Gala 2026,hosted by The Serica Initiative in New York City.
Founding President Yasheng Huang and Founding Vice President Kai Li are being honored for their roles in founding AASF, along with 15 prominent Asian American scientists, who formally established the nonprofit organization in April 2021. AASF was founded during a period of heightened challenges for the Asian American community in the United States. Anti-Asian hate crimes surged, and Asian American scientists and scholars faced unjust targeting. Recognizing the need to support Asian American scholars and raise public awareness of these issues, the group launched AASF to be dedicated to promoting belonging, academic freedom, and equality for all.
The AAPI Trailblazers Gala is The Serica Initiative’s premier annual event, recognizing leaders, innovators, and changemakers whose work expands opportunity, strengthens communities, and drives impact across the Asian diaspora in the United States. This year’s theme, “The Power of Us,” reflects the importance of collective leadership and shared progress across sectors.
Professor Yasheng Huang, the Epoch Foundation Professor of Global Economics and Management at MIT Sloan School of Management and Founding President of AASF, is widely recognized for his scholarship on global economics, policy, and U.S.-China relations. A prolific author and thought leader, he has published numerous books and academic papers examining economic development, governance, and innovation. His work has informed policymakers and institutions worldwide, and he continues to contribute to national conversations on the future of the U.S. research ecosystem. Beyond academia, Professor Huang has advised organizations including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and OECD, and has played a leading role in initiatives that support entrepreneurship and global collaboration.
Professor Kai Li is the Paul M. Wythes ’55, P’86 and Marcia R. Wythes P’86 Professor at Princeton University, where he has been a faculty member since 1986. Born in Changchun, China, he grew up during the Cultural Revolution and, without access to a formal high school education, studied STEM subjects on his own while working in a non-ferrous metals factory. He later earned a B.S. from Jilin University and an M.S. from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, then came to the United States in 1981 as part of one of the first groups of students from China to pursue Ph.D. study in the United States after the Cultural Revolution. He received his doctorate in computer science from Yale University.
He is widely recognized for contributions in three major paradigm shifts in computing. First, he helped drive the shift from proprietary, monolithic multiprocessor systems to scalable clusters of commodity servers. His Ph.D. work on distributed shared memory enabled shared-memory programming on networks of workstations and influenced modern distributed systems. He also pioneered user-level communication for clusters, known as UDMA, a predecessor of today’s RDMA technology, which is now widely used in data centers. These contributions laid important technical foundations for hyperscale services. Second, he co-founded Data Domain and helped lead the transformation of enterprise storage from tape libraries to disk- and cloud-based systems through the invention of large-scale data deduplication. Deduplication has since become a core technology in enterprise flash and cloud storage systems. Third, as co-PI of the ImageNet project, with Fei-Fei Li as PI, he helped catalyze the deep learning revolution in computer vision and modern AI.
He is also a founding member of the Asian American Scholar Forum, which promotes belonging, academic freedom, and equality for all. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a recipient of the Wilbur Cross Medal, Yale’s highest honor for graduate alumni.
The gala convenes leaders from business, academia, technology, media, philanthropy, and public service to celebrate those whose work drives progress and expands impact. Funds raised during the evening support The Serica Initiative’s efforts to elevate the voices and contributions of the Asian diaspora through storytelling, convening, and leadership initiatives.
Additional 2026 Trailblazer Honorees include:
- Steve Chen, Co-Founder and Former CTO of YouTube
- Sonia Cheng, CEO of Rosewood Hotel Group
- Dr. Alexis Chiang Colvin, Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Mount Sinai
- Ida Liu, CEO of HSBC Private Bank
The event will also highlight the Rising Stars Awards, recognizing emerging leaders under 40 for their achievements, leadership, and forward-looking contributions across industries.
AASF celebrates this announcement with appreciation and respect for the broader community of scholars and researchers whose work continues to strengthen the United States’ position as a global leader in science and innovation.