Edgar Chen
Special Advisor
NAPABA
Edgar Chen is Special Advisor to NAPABA. He brings over two decades of legal and advocacy experience in the private law firm, government, and non-profit sectors. He is responsible for developing and advancing policies that support NAPABA’s strategic goals and working with affiliates, organizational allies, and executive branch, and congressional offices to promote NAPABA’s work. In this role he has spearheaded NAPABA’s efforts, in concert with affiliates, to combat the resurgence of anti-Asian “alien land laws” across various states, on immigration matters, and other issues of importance to AANHPI communities.
Prior to joining NAPABA, Chen served in three different federal agencies during administrations of both parties, including as Chief of Staff at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the Department of the Treasury; as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ); and as attorney advisor for oversight matters in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Chen began his governmental career as a trial attorney in the DOJ’s Office of Special Investigations, which was responsible for identifying and taking legal action against participants in Nazi-sponsored acts of persecution and against modern day human rights violators who entered the United States by concealing their roles in war crimes. He also served in the DOJ’s Office of Legislative Affairs, where he spearheaded the Department’s interactions with Congress on a variety of issues including transnational organized crime, money laundering, human trafficking, forensic science reform, tribal law and order, fraud, the DOJ response to the financial crisis and other high-profile matters. He also worked to guide Presidentially Appointed nominees through the Senate confirmation process and handled oversight from congressional committees of jurisdiction.
Prior to entering government service, Chen worked as counsel to the Coalition for International Justice, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting justice efforts at UN-sponsored war crimes tribunals. He began his legal career at the law firm of Foley Hoag LLP where he worked on public international law disputes and securities litigation.
Chen holds an A.B. in History and a certificate in East Asian Studies from Princeton University and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of Princeton In Asia.
Frank Wu
President
Queens College (CUNY)
Frank Wu serves as the eleventh President of Queens College. Prior to joining the City University of New York (CUNY) system, Wu served as Chancellor & Dean, and then William L. Prosser Distinguished Professor at University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, a unique standalone institution, the original law school of the UC system. Before joining UC Hastings, he was a member of the faculty at Howard University, the nation’s leading historically black college/university (HBCU), for a decade. He was appointed by the federal Department of Education during the Obama administration to its National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI), and by the Defense Department to the Military Leadership Diversity Commission. He was a Trustee of Gallaudet University, the only university in the world dedicated to deaf and hard of hearing persons, from 2000 to 2010, and Vice-Chair for the final four years of his tenure. In April 2016, Wu was elected by the members of Committee of 100 as their Chair, and he held that office for two years; then in February 2017, the Board named him as the group’s first-ever President, a role he held for two and a half years. He served on the Board of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund from 2004 to 2010. For his advocacy work, he received the John Hope Franklin Award in 2020. Wu is a Committee of 100 member.
Wu is the author of Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White, which was immediately reprinted in its hardcover edition. Prior to his academic career, he held a clerkship with the late U.S. District Judge Frank J. Battisti in Cleveland and practiced law with the firm of Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco – while there, he devoted a quarter of his time to pro bono work on behalf of indigent clients. He received a BA from Johns Hopkins University and a JD with honors from the University of Michigan.
