Steven Chu
Steven Chu is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology and of Energy Science and Engineering at Stanford University. From January 2009 to April 2013, Dr. Chu served as U.S. Secretary of Energy under President Barack Obama. During his tenure, he began several initiatives, including ARPA-E, the Energy Innovation Hubs, and the Clean Energy Ministerial meetings. As the first scientist Cabinet member, Chu recruited dozens outstanding scientists and engineers to the Department of Energy, and was personally tasked by President Obama to help stop the BP Oil leak. From 2004-2009, he was the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Professor of Physics and of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California Berkeley. Prior to those positions, he was the Theodore and Francis Geballe Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University. He has received many awards, including the 1997 Nobel Prize for laser cooling and optical trapping of atoms. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Inventors, and a foreign member of the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Academia Sinica, the Korean Academy of Sciences and Technology and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Diane Greene
Diane B. Greene is an American technology entrepreneur and executive. She started her career as a naval architect before transitioning to the tech industry, where she was a founder and CEO of VMware from 1998 until 2008. She was a board director of Google and CEO of Google Cloud from 2015 until 2019. She was also the co-founder and CEO of two startups, Bebop and VXtreme. She has served as a board member of Alphabet, Intuit, Khan Academy, SAP, Stripe, A.P. Moller – Maersk, and Wix.com. She joined the MIT corporation in 2008, was elected as a life member in 2013, and served as the chair from 2020 to 2023. She has also served as co-chair of the advisory board at UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
John L Hennessy
John Hennessy is a Turing Award winner and James F. and Mary Lynn Gibbons Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. He served as President of Stanford University from 2000 to 2016. He initiated the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program, the largest fully endowed graduate-level scholarship program in the world, and he serves as the Director of the program. He is Chairman of the Board of Alphabet (parent company of Google) and serves on the Board of Directors for Cisco Systems and the Board of Trustees for Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Hennessy is a pioneer in computer architecture. He was a co-receipt of the ACM Turing Award in 2017 for developing the reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architecture. He co-founded MIPS Computer Systems and Atheros Communications. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Eva Li Hsieh
Eva Li Hsieh is a visionary entrepreneur and philanthropist. She is the co-founder of the Hsieh Family Foundation, a 501(c)(3) philanthropic organization established in 2006. The foundation is dedicated to advancing higher education, scientific research, engineering innovation, biomedical advancements, and fostering cultural exchange between Eastern and Western traditions. Since its establishment in 2006, the foundation has contributed over $100 million in financial support to a wide array of initiatives. These include funding for prestigious universities, the National Academy of Engineering, leading medical enterprise, renowned art museums, and organizations dedicated to supporting Asian Americans in science and broader society. The Hsieh Family Foundation’s mission reflects a commitment to fostering global progress and understanding across disciplines and cultures. With the great passion for art, and the willingness to help the new generation, Eva Hsieh is a patron of the Huntington Library, MOCA, and the Getty Museum. She has been supportive of young emerging contemporary artists around the world, integrating the cultural exchange between the east and the west.
Karen Korematsu
Karen Korematsu is the Founder and President of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute and the daughter of the late civil rights icon, Fred Korematsu. She is a national speaker and travels the country advocating for civil liberties, social justice, civics, and ethnic studies education. She promotes Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution on January 30 in perpetuity for all fifty states. Karen has signed on to several amicus briefs opposing violations of constitutional rights. She is a member of National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) and an Honored Member of the Council of State Social Studies Specialists (CS4). Karen is the first honorary non-lawyer member of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA), serves on the board of directors of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-AAJC, DC and the NAPABA Law Foundation (NLF). She serves on the National Advisory Board of the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at Seattle University School of Law.
Ed Lazowska
Ed Lazowska is a professor and the Bill & Melinda Gates Chair Emeritus in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. His national leadership activities include serving as Co-Chair of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee, Co-Chair of the Working Group of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology to review the Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program, Chair of the Computing Research Association, Chair of the NSF CISE Advisory Committee, and Founding Chair of the Computing Community Consortium, as well as serving the National Academies as a member of the Computer Science & Telecommunications Board, as a Councillor of the National Academy of Engineering, and as a member of the Committee on Science, Engineering, Medicine & Public Policy. In recognition of his national leadership Lazowska has received the Computing Research Association Distinguished Service Award, the ACM Presidential Award, and the ACM Distinguished Service Award. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a Fellow of the ACM, a Life Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the founding class of the Washington State Academy of Sciences.
Paula Williams Madison
Paula Williams Madison is Chairman and CEO of Madison Media Management LLC, a Los Angeles-based media consultancy company with global reach. She also serves as a Founding Partner with The Group LLC, a high-level strategy, marketing and communications consultancy also headquartered in Los Angeles. A highly sought-after public speaker, Madison received numerous honors and awards: named one of the “75 Most Powerful African Americans in Corporate America” by Black Enterprise Magazine in 2005, and included in the Hollywood Reporter’s “Power 100”. In 2013, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appointed Madison to the Los Angeles Police Commission, where she served as Vice President until 2015. She is the former Owner/CEO of the Los Angeles Sparks WNBA basketball team. She also serves on the Boards of the Los Angeles Chinese American Museum, the Center for Asian American Media, the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, Cardinal Spellman High School, the Greater Los Angeles United Way, the California Science Center Foundation, as well as Chair of The Nell Williams Family Foundation. She is also an honorary member of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., a predominantly African-American sorority whose members boast more than 250,000 college-educated women.
Jeannette M. Wing
Jeannette M. Wing is Executive Vice President for Research and Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University. She previously served as Avanessians Director of the Data Science Institute. Prior to coming to Columbia, she was a Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Research, and Head of the Department of Computer Science and as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, and the Assistant Director of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate at the National Science Foundation. Wing has been recognized with distinguished service awards from the Computing Research Association and the ACM. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the ACM, and the IEEE.
John C. Yang
John C. Yang is the president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC. He was the president of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) from 2003 to 2004. He co-founded the Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center in 1997, and served as chair of the Asian American Justice Center (former name of Advancing Justice | AAJC). He is a member of American Bar Association House of Delegates, and a board member of ABA Rule of Law Initiative. He has served as Co-Chair of NAPABA’s Judiciary and Executive Nominations & Appointments Committee since 1998. In this capacity, he has worked extensively with the White House and the U.S. Senate in securing the nomination and confirmation of over 20 Asian American and Pacific Islander federal judges and numerous other Senate-confirmed Presidential appointments.