A WORD FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Following this long pause, it is a thrill to write to you again as we relaunch in-person fellowships.

Much as a PiA fellowship is transformational for an individual, this time has been transformational for PiA as an institution. While staying connected virtually with host organizations, alumni, and friends, we spent much of the past 20 months turned inward, focusing on how to make PiA the very best it can be. Our staff, Trustees, and advisors – in consultation with alumni, host and peer organizations, and colleagues in the field – invested extraordinary amounts of time, energy and effort to strengthen the organization and prepare it for an even more vibrant and impactful future. This included a variety of efforts across all areas of the organization.

>> We launched our first ever remote fellowships and are excited to share the profiles of our remote Fellows with you.

>> We conducted a comprehensive review of health, safety and welfare at PiA and made significant changes to how we meet our duty of care to Fellows. We launched a partnership with International SOS, the world’s leading medical and security services organization, to provide 24/7 emergency support for Fellows. This partnership significantly strengthens the mental health support available to Fellows. In addition, we partnered with Lodestone Safety International to offer new training modules to strengthen Fellows’ travel intelligence and risk management skills. And, we have enhanced staff training to enable our team to more effectively support our Fellows.

>> We dedicated significant attention and resources to diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism. We are grateful to our alumni for their engagement and feedback, which have had a transformational impact on our work in these areas. Our efforts included instituting self-directed learning and trainings for staff and Board, revamping and strengthening Fellow training through a partnership with Global Equity Forward, re-envisioning community-building and connections during the fellowship to better support Fellows of all identities and backgrounds, and strengthening policies and processes to prevent and effectively address issues of harassment, bullying, discrimination and misconduct in partnership with Nonprofit HR. In addition, the Board of Trustees has formed a standing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, which will oversee the implementation of related policies and programs by staff.

>> We focused on financial accessibility in our decision-making around program offerings. We prioritized supplementing the stipends of remote Fellows to accommodate the cost of living in the U.S. and are covering quarantine costs for Fellows departing in winter 2022. We expanded the financial assistance available to Fellows in the winter and were able to meet every request. We eliminated the application fee for 2022-23 fellowships and are committed to removing as many financial barriers to participation in our fellowships as possible.

>> And, we conducted a comprehensive strategic planning process to guide the next ten years of PiA’s growth and development. In the coming months, we look forward to sharing with you the exciting vision and plans we have crafted to lead PiA to a more impactful future.

I could not be more grateful to our tremendous team of staff and Trustees who worked so tirelessly on these efforts over the past 20 months. Among these is a group of extraordinary

Trustees who retired following years – and decades – of service to PiA: Austin Arensberg (4 years), Caitlin Halligan (4), Daisy King (4), Michael Laffan (4), Buzzy Teiser (4), Vicki Noble (13), Michael Northrop (16), Peter Little (16), Jon Wonnell (19) and Ginny Wilmerding (24). We are so grateful for their commitment and contributions to PiA. We are thrilled to welcome the following new Trustees, who have joined the Board over the past year and a half: Matthew Bersani (Taiwan ‘82), A.J. Koikoi (Japan ’16 and Carriebright Fellow ’17), Jamaica Afiya Pouncy (China ’15), Anna M. Shields, Yuri Ouchi Stevens, Leroy Terrelonge III (Kazakhstan ’11), Mai Yer Xiong (Laos ‘15), and Raymond Zhong (Hong Kong ’10).

I also want to thank all of you for your continued support and engagement, which makes all of our work possible.

TEAM TRANSITIONS:

At this stage, I would also like to recognize three extraordinary team members who moved from full-time roles with PiA since our last edition of Pacific Bridges

>> Natalia Rovira Rodrigues, who in five and a half years as Director of Alumni Relations and Programs transformed our alumni engagement and relaunched our programming in India, moved on to attend the Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management as a Roy H. Park Leadership Fellow.

>> Ben Van Son, who after three years as Director of Asia Operations and Program Director – roles in which he excelled in managing all manner of health, safety and welfare crises, including COVID – moved on to an exciting role in international programming at Yale-NUS College in Singapore.

>> Audrey Jenkins, who served PiA for six and a half years, most recently as Deputy Director and Director of Communications, has started an exciting new chapter at Harvard Divinity School. She will continue to support PiA’s communications work as she pursues a Master of Divinity.

I am deeply grateful to Natalia, Ben, and Audrey for their tireless efforts and extraordinary contributions to our organization and send them continued best wishes in these exciting new chapters of their lives.

We are thrilled to introduce the newest members of our team – Program Director Matt Hernández, Senior Program Director Sandhya Gupta, and Director of Advancement Sabrina L. Smith – in the pages that follow. Together with stalwarts Robin Palmer (Advancement Officer), Meghana Nerurkar (Program Director), and Julian Peterson (Program Director), we are proud to carry forward PiA’s urgent and important mission of fostering mutual appreciation and cross-cultural understanding between the United States and Asia through immersive work fellowships in host organizations and communities.

A PERSONAL UPDATE:

Finally, I wish to share a personal update with you. Since I last wrote to you in these pages, I have taken some major steps in my gender transition. I’ve retired Maggie, am writing my name as M.B. Dillon, going by Mags, and using both he/him and they/them pronouns. I am very grateful for the support I’ve received from my teammates, the Board, and members of our PiA community as I have made these changes.

It was not until I went on my fellowship in Laos in 2010 that I met any out transgender people and saw that it was actually possible for me to live authentically in my body. A month into my fellowship, one of my Lao colleagues flat out asked me if I was transgender – a question I hadn’t examined since I was a child and knew with certainty that I was one of the guys. Interactions I’ve had with trans and gender non-conforming friends in Southeast Asia and trans and gender non-confirming PiA Fellows over the years have played a meaningful role in expanding my understanding of this dimension of human experience, and their example has helped give me the courage to follow this path. For all this, I am very grateful.

This chapter of my life has underscored just how transformative the PiA experience and the relationships we form through PiA can be. The experience resonates differently for each individual, and the impacts are long-lasting and beyond what anyone can imagine when they sign up for the fellowship. I treasure the opportunity to work in pursuit of our mission of fostering mutual appreciation and cross-cultural understanding between the U.S. and Asia, and the larger project of building a world where individuals share a mutual appreciation and respect for the diversity of cultures and perspectives.