Dr. Sun Ryung Park is a Senior Research Scholar, Northeast Asia, at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. She is interested in green transition, energy security, and digital transformation in the Asia Pacific region.
Dr. Ari Van Assche is Full Professor of International Business at HEC Montréal and Co-Director of the International Institute of Economic Diplomacy. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Business Policy, Fellow-in-Residence at the C.D. Howe Institute, and Director of the Economics Axis at CERIUM’s Chair of Asian and Indo-Pacific Studies. Ari is also a John H. McArthur Research Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.
Tanya Dawar is a Research Scholar with the South Asia Team at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. She holds a Master of Public Policy and Global Affairs from the University of British Columbia, a Master’s in Economics from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, and a B.Sc. in Mathematics (Honours) from the University of Delhi.
Tanya's research interests include international trade, environmental issues, and global politics.
Kai Ostwald is the HSBC Chair and Director of the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia. He is also Associate Professor, jointly appointed in UBC’s School of Public Policy & Global Affairs and the Department of Political Science. His work focuses broadly on politics and development in Southeast Asia, as well as the Canada – Southeast Asia relationship. Kai has also been involved in policy and development work for a range of organizations including the World Bank and the International Development Research Centre. He holds additional research appointments at ISEAS in Singapore and the Penang Institute in Malaysia, and serves on the executive council of the Southeast Asia Research Group (SEAREG).
Dr. Htet Thiha Zaw is the UBC Myanmar Initiative Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia. His research investigates the role of Indigenous institutions in colonial and post-independence development in state violence and state involvement in education, focusing on Southeast Asia and colonial contexts. His work at the International Rescue Committee studies the impact of state policy on post-independence education outcomes in the Global South. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor.
Jia Wang is a Senior Fellow and Senior Advisor, and served as the Interim Director (Jan 2021 – Aug 2023), of the China Institute at the University of Alberta, where she has managed research, programs, and government and media relations since 2011. She is also a Senior Fellow (non-resident) with APF Canada.
Jia has more than 17 years of direct management experience focusing on the economic and political dimensions of contemporary China and Canada-China relations in various capacities.
Xiaoting (Maya) Liu is Program Manager, China, at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. She is a Master of International Affairs graduate from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University.
Rachael Gurney is a Senior Project Specialist, International Trade and Investment, at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. She has a M.A. in Political Science and Contemporary East Asian and Southeast Asian studies from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia. Her master’s research focused on resource nationalism in Indonesia’s critical mineral mining policies. Her research interests concern natural resource policy, foreign direct investment, and free trade.
Julia G. Bentley is currently a Senior Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, an External Research Associate of the York Centre for Asian Research, a Non-Resident Fellow at National Taiwan University`s Centre for China Studies, and a member of the Board of Governors of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Malaysia. Julia is also a Distinguished Fellow with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.
She served in the Canadian foreign service with distinction for 32 years, occupying several senior executive positions at Global Affairs Canada related to Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.
Julia has also represented Canada as a diplomat abroad. She served as Canada’s High Commissioner in Malaysia (2017-2020) and previously at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing (twice), the Canadian High Commission in Delhi, and the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei.
Combined with other roles including as a teacher, development consultant, and head of an international organization, she spent 22 years working in Asia.
Elizabeth Donkervoort is the Senior Advisor, China Programs for the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. She holds a JD and a Master of Asia Pacific Policy Studies from the University of British Columbia and specializes in legal and institutional policy analysis of governance, security, and regulatory frameworks, with attention to rights-protective safeguards, emerging technologies, and real-world governance implications in People's Republic of China-related and comparative contexts.
