Judith Farquhar is currently the Max Palevsky Professor of Anthropology and in the College, Emerita, at the University of Chicago. Trained as a medical anthropologist, Farquhar’s research focuses on traditional Chinese medicine and its social and cultural contexts. She authored Knowing Practice: The Clinical Encounter of Chinese Medicine (1994), which examines the theory and practice of traditional medicine in modern China, as well as five other books, the most recent being A Way of Life: Things, Thought and Action in Chinese Medicine (2020).

Dr. Mai Uchida, MD is the Director of Pediatric Depression at Massachusetts General Hospital, a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, neuroimaging researcher, and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She is an international advocate for mental health, scientific literacy, and gender equality.

Global Women Asia (GWA) is proud to announce the formation of the Women in Health Innovation Council. The Council, composed of health and business leaders with Asian perspectives, will guide our efforts throughout the year to amplify the voices of leaders and spotlight those driving innovation in healthcare. The Council will help GWA spotlight leaders and organizations advancing health innovation through AI and technology, public policy, community-based best practices from around the world, new ventures, mental health, wellness integration, and closing the gender gap in healthcare.

Anuradha Das Mathur, Samarth Care (India)

Piya Hanvoravongchai, National Health Foundation (Thailand)

Kam Shing Kwang, JP Morgan and Women CEOs (Hong Kong, China)

Clarence Lam, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health (USA)

Shriya Srinivasan, Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (USA)

Global Women Asia recently convened our board members, fellows, advisors, and new community members in Hong Kong and Singapore to celebrate diverse leadership and allyship.

Global Women Asia’s 2024 Women-in-STEM Fellows convened from around the world for an exclusive four-day leadership program in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

They visited leading tech companies such as Ripple, Google, LinkedIn, and Plug and Play Tech Center to understand the latest trends of crypto currency, the future of semiconductor design, and the venture capital ecosystem in Silicon Valley.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for supporting Global Women Asia’s inaugural Women-in-STEM Groundbreakers Award. We are inspired by all the honorees: Neeru Khosla of CK-12 Foundation; Mastercard’s Girls4Tech initiative; Pakistani Women in Computing (PWiC) and its co-founders, Huma Hamid and Farah Ali; and Professor Nancy Y. IP of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).

Raj Seshadri is the Chief Commercial Payments Officer at Mastercard and a member of the company’s Executive Leadership Team and Management Committee. She is responsible for Commercial & New Payment Flows focused on bringing the same safe and seamless experience consumers have in retail carded payments to business and corporate customers. She was previously president of Mastercard’s global Data & Services team, having joined the company in 2016.

Global Women Asia convened our London community on September 17 to introduce our 2024 Women in STEM fellow Tee Ganbold and 2023 Women in Sustainability fellow Larissa Pramudita Sidarto. Thank you to our host Baker McKenzie and to Jane Hobson and H. Henry Chang for their generosity.

Clara Shih is a technology pioneer, entrepreneur, and bestselling author. She currently leads artificial intelligence efforts at Salesforce and is also the Founder and Chairwoman of Hearsay Systems, a client engagement SaaS startup backed by Sequoia and NEA. She has been named one of Fortune’s “40 under 40” and “Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs,” Fast Company’s “Most Influential People in Technology,” “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, and TIME's 100 most influential people in AI.

Global Women Asia (GWA) hosted a discussion with Marine Mallinson of Noetic Fund and Patricia Sun of JLIN LLC and Jeremy Lin Foundation for #MentalHealthAwareness. As GWA continues to focus on #WomenInSTEM in 2024, we highlighted the current state of mental health solutions and breakthroughs.

Valerie Karplus is a leading expert and catalyst in the intersection of energy innovation, the decarbonization of global supply chains, and climate policies. As a co-founder and director of the MIT-Tsinghua China Energy and Climate Project trying to solve one of the most daunting challenges facing the earth, she helped enable a whole new generation of leaders from MIT, Tsinghua, and other collaborating groups to lead on energy and climate issues worldwide.

Fatima Kardar is the Corporate Vice President of the AI Infrastructure, Partnerships & Marketplace, Microsoft AI. The AI Infrastructure and Partnership team is building a unified platform to support all copilot offerings across Microsoft’s products. The Marketplace team is creating a services marketplace to connect customers to high-quality services provided from around the world.

On April 18th, Global Women Asia held our offline event in China with Bessie Lee, Greater China CEO, JLL and host of Beiwanglu 贝望录 podcast. Global Women Asia 2023 Fellows Olivia Plotnick and Milawen Ding hosted the event at the office of Gusto Collective in Jing’An, Shanghai.

Samantha Freebairn is the Senior Manager of Aviation Safety Training at Qantas Airways. Previously, she was a pilot for the Royal Australian Air Force, where she flew humanitarian and combat missions across Asia and globally and conducted aeromedical evacuations.

GWA celebrated International Women’s Month by spotlighting notable Women in STEM, our theme for 2024. We held an online conversation between GWA co-founder and board member Fritz Demopoulos and Dr. Songyee Yoon, an AI technology humanist.

Women in STEM face systemic inequality and bias as early as elementary school, and this continues through higher education and in the workplace. Not only does this impact women personally, but it also has far-reaching consequences for society.

Global Women Asia (GWA) announces the establishment of the Women in STEM Council. This advisory body is committed to expanding the women in STEM pipeline globally, from sparking interest in STEM education to advocating for workforce career advancement.

Ambassador Chantale Wong is the U.S. Executive Director to the Asian Development Bank. Trained as an engineer, Ambassador Wong has had a long and distinguished career in public service.

Global Women Asia welcomes Emily Chew as our latest member of the Board. Emily is Executive Vice President of Calvert Research and Management, a part of Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

Global Women Asia (GWA) received the HK Federation of Women on March 12 as the delegation participated in the annual UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meetings in New York City.