mission
Asia Catalyst partners with activists in Asia
to inspire, create and
launch innovative, self-sustaining programs and organizations that
advance human rights, social justice and environmental protection. We
link up Asian community leaders, journalists, activists and lawyers
with each other and with international experts who can help them to
realize their visions. We incubate programs that may be too risky or
innovative for larger organizations to take on.
Download our
2009 Annual Report, 2008
Annual Report or
2007
Annual
Report. Our annual financial statement is available to the public upon request.
board
of
directors
Yvonne Y.F. Chan,
co-chair, treasurerSophie Richardson, Ph.D.,
co-chair
John Emerson,
secretaryJerome A. Cohen
Joseph Saunders
Minky Worden
John Santoleri,
chair, advisory committee
staff
Sara L.M. Davis, Ph.D., executive director
Gisa Hartmann, coordinator
Ken Oh,
Asia Report
editor
interns and volunteers
Florence Au
Adam Froiran
Annie Ye Ren
Hye Gi Shim
designers
Simon Barna, logo
Claire Kells, website
biographies
staff
founder and executive
director
-- Sara L.M. Davis, Ph.D. (or “Meg”) is a writer and human rights advocate who has
conducted research and advocacy on HIV/AIDS and human rights, police
abuse, housing rights, environmental rights, and rule of law in China,
Thailand, Burma, Cambodia and Indonesia. Dr. Davis
earned a Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania and held postdoctoral
fellowships at Yale University and UCLA. As a China researcher
at
Human Rights Watch, she published reports and conducted global
advocacy. Davis’ book,
Song
and Silence:
Ethnic Revival on China’s Southwest Borders (Columbia University Press,
2005), based on her doctoral dissertation, draws on research in Yunnan,
China and Shan State, Burma and has been reprinted in Thailand. Her
articles have appeared in
The
Wall Street Journal Asia,
International Herald
Tribune, South China Morning Post, and
Modern
China, and are available online at www.songandsilence.com.
coordinator
-- German native Gisa Hartmann received her MA in Sinology and
Political Science from University of Cologne, Germany, in summer 2009.
Her thesis discusses psychosocial impacts on children affected by
HIV/AIDS and is based on field research in Anhui Province. At
University of Cologne, she has organized symposia, panel discussions,
and a Chinese documentary film festival, and she lived in Beijing for
one and a half years.
editor, Asia Report -- Ken Oh is the editor of our Chinese-language website on economic and social rights in Asia,
Asia Report or
亚洲调查。
Ken is also a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Gary DiVito and the
Honorable Idee Fox of the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania. He
holds a BA in Political Science and English Literature from Swarthmore
College, and a JD from Temple University School of Law. His previous
work and internship experience includes the Centre for the Study of
Violence and Reconciliation, where he focused on transitional justice
mechanisms and new constitutions.
board of directors
co-chair, treasurer -- Yvonne Y.F. Chan is a partner in the Corporate Department
and a
member of the Investment Funds Group of Paul, Weiss and Rifkind, where
she concentrates on the organization of pooled investment funds that
raise private equity, including buyout funds, venture funds and funds
of funds, as well as offshore and onshore hedge funds. Her practice
includes the preparation and negotiation of definitive documents
detailing the arrangements among fund principals and sponsors. Ms. Chan
has also worked extensively on foreign direct investments in China and
mergers and acquisitions in the U.S., with a focus on cross-border
joint ventures. She is currently serving as counsel to several private
equity funds with regard to their fund raising and investment
activities in Asia. A New Zealand-trained lawyer, Ms. Chan has worked
in the firm’s Beijing, Hong Kong and New York offices, and formerly
served as General Counsel-North Asia of Glaxo China Limited in Hong
Kong. Ms. Chan is fluent in English and Mandarin Chinese. She is
qualified as a barrister and solicitor in New Zealand.
member, board of directors
-- Jerome A. Cohen is a founding board member of Asia Catalyst and Professor at New York University School of Law,
Of Counsel in the international law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind,
Wharton & Garrison, LLP and Senior Fellow for Asia Studies at
the
Council on Foreign Relations. Prof. Cohen has special
expertise
in
business and public law relating to Asia and has long represented
companies and individuals in contract negotiations and dispute
resolution in China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea and other countries of East
Asia. Prof. Cohen formerly served as Jeremiah J. Smith Professor,
Director of East Asian Legal Studies and Associate Dean at Harvard Law
School. At New York University School of Law, he teaches
courses
on “Law and Society in China – The Criminal Process” and “International
Business Transactions in China”. He has published several
books
and many articles on Chinese law.
Prof. Cohen was Visiting
Professor of Law at Doshisha University in Kyoto in 1971-72 and
Honorary Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong in
1979.
The Cohens lived in Beijing during 1979-81, while Prof. Cohen
took
part in various trade and investment contract negotiations and taught a
course on international business law, in the Chinese language, for
Beijing officials. Prof. Cohen is a member of the Panel of
Arbitrators of both the China International Economic and Trade
Arbitration Commission and the China Securities Regulatory Commission
in Beijing; Chair of the China Advisory Committee for the International
Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution; a Trustee of the
China Institute in America; a Director of the National Committee on
U.S.-China Relations; and a Trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace. He currently serves as Chair of the Asia
Law
Initiative Advisory Council for the American Bar Association and
formerly has served as Chairman of the New York/Beijing Friendship
Committee; a Trustee of The Asia Society, a Corporate Director of the
Japan Society; Advisor to the Government of Sichuan Province, China;
Chairman of the American Arbitration Association’s China Conciliation
Committee; Vice Chair of the Advisory Council for The Johns
Hopkins-Nanjing University Joint Center in China and a member of the
Board of Editors of both the China Quarterly and the American Journal
of International Law. He continues to serve on the Advisory
Board
of Human Rights Watch-Asia. Prof. Cohen is also Director of
the
American Foreign Law Association and received the AFLA Distinguished
Service Award in 2001. He was also awarded the 2000 Lifetime
Service to Asian Legal Development Award.
secretary
-- John Emerson is a founding board member of Asia Catalyst and an activist, graphic designer, writer and programmer
based in New York City. He has designed web sites, printed materials
and motion graphics for leading media companies as well as local and
international non-profit organizations. His writing about graphic
design has been published in
Communication
Arts and
Print,
featured in
Metropolis Magazine
and the
Wall Street
Journal, and translated into
Italian by the Italian Association of Graphic Designers. Mr. Emerson
co-founded
the social media consultancy Apperceptive in 2006 and sold it to Six
Apart Ltd in 2008. His website is
backspace.
co-chair -- Sophie Richardson, Ph.D. is a founding board member of Asia Catalyst and the deputy director of Human
Rights
Watch’s Asia Division. Her dissertation examined Chinese foreign policy
toward Cambodia, and she has published on domestic political reform in
China and on contemporary Cambodian politics. Before joining
Human Rights Watch, Dr. Richardson worked for the National Democratic
Institute for International Affairs, where she oversaw electoral,
legislative, and political party programs in Cambodia, China, and Hong
Kong. She has also served as a consultant on democratization,
human rights, and governance to the International Crisis Group, the
National Democratic Institute, Human Rights Watch, and the World Bank,
with publications in the
Journal
of Asian Studies, The Nation
(Bangkok), The Phnom Penh Post, and the
Far Eastern Economic
Review. She is a graduate of the University of
Virginia and
Oberlin College.
member, board of directors
-- Joseph Saunders is Deputy Program Director at Human Rights
Watch. An Indonesia specialist and lawyer by training, he is currently
responsible for supervising the work of HRW’s programs on Asia, the
Middle East and North Africa, the United States, Central and Latin
America, women’s rights, business & human rights, and
terrorism/counterterrorism. Apart from a brief period as senior program
officer at the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, he
has spent the past ten years at HRW. Prior to joining HRW, Mr. Saunders
was a lawyer at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York
and
spent two years in Indonesia as a Fulbright scholar. He has studied
human biology (Stanford U.), anthropology (Cornell U), and law (NYU),
where he was editor-in-chief of the law review.
member, board of directors -- As Media Director of Human Rights Watch, Minky Worden works
with the
world’s journalists to help them cover crises, wars, human rights
abuses and political developments in more than 70 countries worldwide.
Before joining Human Rights Watch in 1998, Ms. Worden lived and worked
in Hong Kong as an adviser to Democratic Party chairman Martin Lee and
worked at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. as a
speechwriter for the U.S. Attorney General and in the Executive Office
for US Attorneys. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Ms.
Worden speaks Cantonese and German, and is an elected member of the
Overseas Press Club's Board of Governors. She is the editor of
China's
Great Leap: The Beijing Games and Olympian Human Rights Challenges
(Seven Stories, May 2008) and the co-editor of
Torture
(New Press, 2005).
donors
Below is a list of our donors for fiscal year 2008-09.
$50,000 and above
Levi Strauss Foundation
National Endowment for Democracy
$10,000 and above
AIDS Fonds
Richard W. Fields
U.S.-China Legal Cooperation Fund
$5,000 and above
Freedom House
Taiwan Foundation for Democracy
$1,000 and above
Yvonne Chan
Jerome A. Cohen
Yoden Thonden
Minky Worden
$500 and above
Joanne Csete
$100 and above
Janice Brown
Mary Devins
John Emerson
Maggie Lewis
Emmanuelle & Robin Lyon
Dana Nguyen
Robert & Cynthia Richardson
Sophie Richardson
Joe Saunders
James Seymour
many thanks to all our
donors for your friendship and support!