Gisela Perez Kusakawa
Executive Director
Asian American Scholar Forum
Gisela Perez Kusakawa is a civil rights leader, policy expert, and attorney who became the first Executive Director of the Asian American Scholar Forum (AASF) in 2022. Her work focuses on civil rights, national security, anti-profiling, and immigrant advocacy.
Before joining AASF, Kusakawa served as Founding Director and Supervising Attorney of the Anti-Profiling, Civil Rights, and National Security program at Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC). She led advocacy initiatives, built partnerships, and spearheaded coalition efforts to end the U.S. Department of Justice’s “China Initiative.”
Kusakawa previously represented asylum seekers and detained immigrants, worked in community development in the Philippines, and taught in Japan. She serves on several legal and community organization boards and received the Justice Thurgood Marshall Civil Liberties Award for her public service.
A first-generation immigrant from the Philippines, Kusakawa earned her J.D. from The George Washington University Law School and is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
T. Augustine Lo
Partner
National Security Law Practice Group, Dorsey & Whitney LLP
T. Augustine Lo is a Partner at Dorsey & Whitney LLP’s National Security Law Practice Group, advising clients on international trade, economic sanctions, export controls, and national security requirements for cross-border transactions. Proficient in Mandarin Chinese, he also counsels clients on matters involving East Asia.
His practice includes U.S. customs enforcement, tariff relief, trade remedies, free trade agreements, and foreign investment reviews by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). He advises clients on compliance with U.S. export controls and sanctions, conducts corporate investigations, and supports trade-related due diligence for mergers, acquisitions, and capital markets transactions.
Before joining Dorsey’s Seattle office, Augustine practiced in the firm’s New York office, representing corporate clients in commercial litigation, including a major Chinese bank. He previously served as an enforcement attorney in the Office of Chief Counsel at U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters and clerked for two federal district judges in Puerto Rico. His experience spans private practice, government enforcement, and federal judicial service.
Yingyi Ma
Professor of Sociology & Director
Asian/Asian American Studies
Syracuse University
Yingyi Ma is a Professor of Sociology and Director of the Asian/Asian American Studies Program at Syracuse University. Her research examines education and migration in the United States and China, focusing on educational stratification, international students, and how academic fields facilitate social mobility for racial minorities and children of immigrants.
She authored Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education (2020), which received multiple awards from the Comparative and International Education Association and an honorable mention for the American Sociological Association’s Bourdieu Best Book Award. She also co-edited volumes on Asian international students in American universities and international student employability.
Ma has received multiple faculty excellence awards at Syracuse University. In 2019, she was selected as a Public Intellectual Fellow by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and has contributed commentary to national and international media. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Johns Hopkins University in 2007.
