A Reflecting Note on the Asian American Heritage Month - May 2024

As we turned the page from the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month (which is each May in the U.S.), May 2024 will be special in my memory lane in multiple ways.

It was a joy today to receive the above group picture from a mid-May celebration of the career and impact of Computer Science Prof. Kai Li of Princeton University.? Kai is such an exemplar of entrepreneurship on multiple dimensions: his successful high-tech startup, his visionary endeavors shattering traditional approaches in computing systems and forging collaborations across disciplines, and more recently and ongoing, his spearheading effort in establishing and growing the Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF).

I was so glad to join a group of AASF colleagues in person to celebrate Kai's achievement. Before this celebration, we last met as a group this past March (the month of women's heritage!) at the White House, led by Kai and our super energetic Executive Director Gisela Perez Kusakawa .? We had an inspiring meeting with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director, Dr. Arati Prabhakar, and Deputy Assistant to President Biden and Senior Liaison to AAHPI, Erika Moritsugu, and their teams. We discussed a range of issues and challenges facing the community including those related to the “China Initiative,” and an on-going effort in raising the public's awareness of the profound impact of Asian American STEM pioneers in transforming the everyday life of Americans and billions of people around the world.

The Princeton day trip brought me back to the orange-and-black-decorated campus to reconnect with faculty and alumni, and I also made a short visit to my host family whose kindness and warmth helped me through my graduate years far away from home in the 1990s. The tight schedule worked out perfectly that I got back to Maryland in time to attend the Commencement of the University of Maryland - A. James Clark School of Engineering . The ceremonies featured three alumni and student speakers of Asian American heritage, Chao Wu - PhD'09, Rattan Khosa - MS'71, and Dewansh Rastogi - PhD'23, who inspired and celebrated with our engineering graduates of Class 2023-2024! (Live stream and replay of the ceremony #ClarkSchoolGrads)

-- W.M. on 1 June 2024.