We are pleased to invite you to attend our Committee of 100 Conversations – “Recollections, Pioneers and Heroes” event series, featuring interviews with Chinese Americans who have contributed to the success of America through their pioneering efforts, heroic achievements, or recollections of important events.

Our first Committee of 100 Conversations event featured Gordon Chang, Professor of American History, Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities at Stanford University and a Committee of 100 member. Chang provided a crucial historical perspective on the urgent issues facing Asian Americans in a time of rising international tensions and anti-Asian sentiments at home. In addition, he reflected on his scholarly trajectory and his journey into Asian American studies as a field of study. Chang commented on his latest book, War, Race and Culture – Journeys in Trans-Pacific and Asian American Histories, a career-spanning anthology of significant essays that prompt conversations across his broad-ranging research interests and personal history, from trans-Pacific history and Asian American history to art history.

Peter Young, Chair of the Conversations Initiative and Committee of 100 New York Regional Chair and Board Member, moderated the conversation.

Gordon Chang
Professor of American History, Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities
Stanford University

Gordon H. Chang is professor of history at Stanford University and the Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities. He recently stepped down as the Senior Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. In that position, he helped lead the University through the trials of the pandemic. He has been on the Stanford faculty since 1991.

His latest book was published in May of 2025, War, Race and Culture – Journeys in Trans-Pacific and Asian American Histories. In 2019, he published Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic History of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and, as co-editor, The Chinese and the Iron Road: Building the Transcontinental (Stanford University Press). These books draw from more than seven years of work conducted by the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project at Stanford which he has co-directed. His other books include Friends and Enemies: The United States, China, and the Soviet Union, 1948-1972; Morning Glory, Evening Shadow: Yamato Ichihashi and his Internment Writings, 1942-1945; and Fateful Ties: A History of America’s Preoccupation with China. He edited or co-edited Asian Americans and Politics; Chinese American Voices, with Judy Yung and Him Mark Lai; and Asian American Art: A History.

He is a fourth generation Californian, having grown up in Oakland. His degrees are from Princeton University and Stanford. He has been a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, and three times at the Stanford Humanities Center. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2024. He has served as the Director of the Asian American Studies Program and the Director of the Center for East Asian Studies. In addition to the honors and awards mentioned above, he is a Fellow of the Society of American History; received the Distinguished Alumni Award, Princeton Asian American Alumni Association; and was honored with Certificates of Recognition for this scholarship from Congresspeople Nancy Pelosi, Anna Eshoo, and Ro Khanna, U.S. House of Representatives; and from the California State Legislature, including Representatives Kansen Chu, David Chiu, Evan Low, Jerry Hill, and Jim Beall.

Peter Young
CEO and President of Young & Partners;
Committee of 100 New York Regional Chair and Board Member

Peter Young is CEO of Young & Partners, a boutique investment banking firm focused on the life science and chemical industries. He manages the firm and is actively involved in client transactions and financings. Under his leadership, Young & Partners has established and maintained its position as a highly regarded firm serving the corporate strategy, M&A, restructuring and financing needs of clients worldwide. He was previously head of industry groups at Salomon Brothers, Schroders and Lehman Brothers, a senior private equity executive with J.H. Whitney & Co. and a senior member of Bain & Co., the corporate strategy firm.

Young received a BA in Economics from Yale, an MS in Accounting from NYU, and MBA from Harvard Business School where he graduated with Distinction as a Baker Scholar. He is a CPA and a Chartered Global Management Accountant. He serves on a number of boards of directors, both corporate and non-profit and is a board member of Société de Chimie Industrielle, a leading life science and chemical industry non-profit organization and on the Editorial Advisory Board of Pharmaceutical Executive.