Thursday, June 2, 2022 | 8:30 PM EDT - 9:30 PM EDT
Zoom Webinar | Yangyang Cheng, Steven Chu, Eileen Guo, Margaret Lewis
In February 2022, the China Initiative, a program launched by the Trump administration’s U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2018, formally ended. The initiative was an effort to prosecute economic espionage and trade secret theft by the Chinese government. As the first country-specific initiative in DOJ history, it was criticized for targeting academics and researchers of Chinese descent and for failing to meet its goals. Despite the official termination of the program, the impact is still palpable, especially among Asian immigrant and Asian American academic communities.
The National Committee hosted a virtual program on June 2, 2022 with Yangyang Cheng, Steven Chu, and Eileen Guo, moderated by Margaret Lewis, as they discussed the future of U.S.-China research cooperation and security.
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Speakers
Yangyang Cheng
Yangyang Cheng is a research scholar in law and fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, where she focuses on the development of science and technology in China and U.S.-China relations. Her essays on these and related topics have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, WIRED, MIT Technology Review, and many other publications. She is a columnist at SupChina and a contributing columnist at Physics World.
Born and raised in China, Dr. Cheng received her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago and her bachelor’s degree from the University of Science and Technology of China’s School for the Gifted Young. Before joining Yale, she worked on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for over a decade, most recently at Cornell University and as an LHC Physics Center Distinguished Researcher at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
Steven Chu
Steven Chu is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Physics and Professor of Molecular & Cellular Physiology at the Stanford University medical school. He has published over 280 papers in atomic and polymer physics, biophysics, biology, bio-imaging, batteries, and other energy technologies.
Dr. Chu was the 12th U.S. Secretary of Energy (2009-2013). As the first scientist to hold a Cabinet position and the longest serving Energy Secretary, he recruited outstanding scientists and engineers into the Department of Energy. Dr. Chu is the co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to laser cooling and atom trapping, and has received numerous other awards. He received his A.B. degree in mathematics and B.S. degree in physics from the University of Rochester, and Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, as well as 32 honorary degrees.
Eileen Guo
Eileen Guo is the senior reporter for features and investigations at MIT Technology Review, where she focuses on how the technology industry shapes our world, often entrenching existing injustices and inequalities in the process. Before joining Tech Review, she was a freelance journalist and audio producer for publications like The New York Times, Washington Post, National Geographic, and Wired, among others. She has reported from the ground in Afghanistan, China, Central America, and both rural and urban parts of the United States.
Ms. Guo reports in Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, has completed hostile environment first aid training, and is certified in wilderness first aid. She is a graduate of Tufts University.
Moderator
Margaret K. Lewis
Margaret K. Lewis is a professor of law at Seton Hall University. Her research focuses on China and Taiwan with an emphasis on criminal justice and human rights as well as on legal issues in the U.S.-China relationship. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar at National Taiwan University, a visiting professor at Academia Sinica, a Public Intellectuals Program Fellow with the National Committee on United States-China Relations, and a delegate to the U.S.-Japan Foundation’s U.S.-Japan Leadership Program. Professor Lewis is also a non-resident affiliated scholar of NYU School of Law’s U.S.-Asia Law Institute.
Professor Lewis received her J.D., magna cum laude, from NYU School of Law. She received her B.A., summa cum laude, from Columbia University and also studied at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies.
