We’re very excited to partner with Roots & Shoots once again to host our second Women’s Empowerment Panel with opening remarks from Dr. Jane Goodall. For this chapter, we are focusing on Dr. Jane Goodall’s career, and we hope the topics arising from it will inspire young Chinese people–especially young women in STEAM to follow their dreams and achieve their potential.
Our speakers will share their thoughts on topics ranging from why there are typically more men in the industry, to how Women’s Empowerment impacts women in STEAM, and how we can encourage and support the next generation of women wanting to pursue careers in science.
This virtual panel will take place on June 5th, 12pm China Time and the Zoom information will be sent to you before the event. Tickets are 100 RMB and all proceeds will go to Roots & Shoots.
Meet our panelists: Dr. M Jackson (Glaciologist), Professor Yan Xie (Biologist), Dr. Yuzhong Liu (Bio-Engineer), Adina Balaban (Mathematician). Our Panel will be moderated by our very own WildChina Education Director, Haena Kim.
Dr. M Jackson is a geographer, glaciologist, and science communicator exploring the intersections of societal transformation, glaciology, and climate change. Jackson is a National Geographic Society Explorer, TED Fellow, and three-time U.S. Fulbright Scholar including two U.S. Fulbright-National Science Foundation Arctic Research grants. Jackson holds a doctorate from the University of Oregon, a Master of Science degree from the University of Montana, serves as a U.S. Fulbright Ambassador, an Expert for National Geographic Expeditions, and was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zambia. Jackson is an active public speaker and author of the award winning science books The Secret Lives of Glaciers (2019) and While Glaciers Slept: Being Human in a Time of Climate Change (2015). Jackson has worked for over a decade in the Arctic and Antarctic exploring changing climates and communities and currently lives in Eugene, Oregon.
Dr. Yuzhong Liu is a post-doctoral fellow at the Joint Bio Energy Institute, the US department of Energy’s flagship program tasked with the development and research of biofuels for the future. She serves as the Associate Director of Commercialization there while simultaneously consulting for a stealth startup company. Dr. Liu’s work has been featured on Forbes, Science Daily and on the front page of the leading scientific publication “Science,” amongst many others. She has been cited over 1000 times by researchers and scientists all over the world and holds no less than 4 patents under her name. Dr. Liu’s work is shifting paradigms around the cure for Alzheimer’s disease, the development of sustainable biofuels, and reduction methodologies for carbon dioxide emissions. All this, and Dr. Liu has only just turned 30! In her free time, Dr. Liu likes to play the piano, run marathons, rock climb, and dress up her two cats.
Yan Xie is an associate research professor in the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences; International Coordinator, N% Plan; Chief Scientist of International Alliance of Protected Areas (IAPA); Steering Committee Member, Species Survival Commission/IUCN. During 2000-2009, she led the significant initiative for developing China Species Redlist where evaluated over 10,000 species and published China Species Redlist (4 volumes in 2004, 2009); during 2005-2012, she was China Country Program Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and made good progress on Amur tiger, Tibetan antelope, Chinese alligator conservation and wildlife trade control; she conducted research on protected area system since 2000, and her effort on promoting the Chinese government to issue a comprehensive Protected Area Law has very big impact to current protected area system reform in China; 2013, she promoted friendly development in and around protected areas to mitigate conflicts between nature conservation and economic development; since 2013, she has also been the moving force behind the IAPA, a China-led international effort to improve collaboration among protected areas in all parts of the world; since 2017, she actively involved in N% Plan to promote wider society to participate and support conservation.
A passionate and result- oriented professional, Adina holds a record of over 20 years of successful delivery in areas of people and project management for IT and Customer Service. During her career, she made the transition from the public sector, where she worked as a Mathematics teacher, to the private sector, namely to the Telecommunications industry, where she has been working for 20 years, first in Customer Operations, followed by IT. Ambitious and dedicated, she achieved outstanding results, proving strategic thinking and leadership skills, which allowed her to grow into management in both divisions. In Huawei she is managing all software projects with Romania’s operators. She describes herself as passionate about learning new things by herself and by working together with her colleagues, to solve complex problems no matter the challenges, to find out new directions and trends in technology and to have altogether the chance to experiment them and see how they evolve. Each project that she delivers, knowledge that she acquires and each task that she successfully accomplishes give her the energy and the drive to be a better professional tomorrow.
