Advisory Council

Rebecca Lee serves as Communications Director for the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, where she manages the organization’s national outreach to the AAPI community and stakeholders across traditional and digital media platforms. Rebecca joined the Initiative as a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF), selected from graduate programs across the country. As a PMF, she served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). At HHS, Rebecca coordinated communications efforts around the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. …(more)
Prior to joining the federal government, she was a senior consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton specializing in strategic communications campaigns for federal health clients. Rebecca holds a Bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a Master’s degree from Columbia University. At Cornell, she led a diverse coalition to found the Asian & Asian-American Center (A3C). Rebecca serves on the Advisory Council of the Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership (CAPAL). (less)

David T. Takeuchi, Ph.D., is Professor and Dorothy Book Scholar in the School of Social Work at Boston College. He is also Associate Dean for Research at the SSW at Boston College. He is a sociologist with a focus on the social, structural, and cultural contexts that are associated with different health outcomes, especially among racial and ethnic minorities. He received the Legacy Award from the Family Research Consortium for his research and mentoring, the Research Innovations Award from the National Center on Health and Health Disparities, 2011 University of Washington Marsha Landolt Award for mentoring, and the 2015 Leonard Pearling Award …(more)
for distinguished contributions to the sociology of mental health. He is an elected member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences, the Sociological Research Association, and the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare. He currently serves as the elected Secretary for the American Sociological Association. less

Steven Raga is a Consultant for Multicultural Leadership at AARP, where he works on outreach and advocacy for older adults. Steven serves as the New York State Chair for the National Federation for Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA) as well as a member of its National Board of Governors. Steven is the founding President and current Board Chair for Pilipino American Unity for Progress (UniPro), and the Vice President of the Filipino American Democratic Club of New York. He is an alum of the Coro New York Immigrant Civic Leadership Program, the Queens Fellowship, the New American Leaders Program, the National Urban Fellows Program, and the Filipino American Young Leaders Program …(more)
(FYLPro)’s flagship cohort in 2012, sponsored by the Philippine Embassy. Steven is also a Community Engagement Subcommittee Member for the United Way Young Leaders Council of New York City, a Community Warden for the Philippine Consulate General in New York, and volunteers at America Needs You as a Mentor Coach for 1st-generation college students. Steven has recently been appointed to Queens Community Board #2 by Queens Borough President Melinda Katz. He is also a recent appointment to the NY State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Federal Commission on Civil Rights. less

Liz Cheng, WGBH’s General Manager for Television, oversees local channels WGBH 2, WGBX 44, ‘GBH Kids, Create, and Boston Kids and Family as well as WORLD — a 24/7 national multicast channel offering the best public media news and documentary programming. She co-created the award-winning America ReFramed, featuring films by diverse and emerging filmmakers and Local, USA, a weekly news magazine. Locally, Cheng launched a choral competition series, Sing That Thing!
Previously, Cheng was WCVB-TV Channel 5 VP and Executive in Charge of Chronicle, the A and E simulcasts Pops Goes the Fourth! and Holiday Pops as well as specials for the History Channel.
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Cheng has received many national honors, including an Asian American Journalists Association Award, two National Association of Broadcasters Awards, two National Association of Television Programming Executives honors, three Gabriel Awards, a Gracie Award, many Telly Awards, five Cine Golden Eagle Awards, an Action for Children¹s Television Award, a Parents¹ Choice Award, and two National Emmy Award Nominations. (less)

As Chief Product Officer and Creative Director, Annie drives innovation across all of Her Campus’s multimedia platforms, leading creative, technical and user experience strategy to build the products that make Her Campus the most beloved and authentic brand for college women everywhere. In January 2016, Annie successfully launched a major company rebrand, unveiling a new HerCampus.com, College Fashion Week, email newsletter, and more in the process. A firm believer that product is only as good as your process, she also oversees company operations and helps craft winning workflows for internal teams.
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Annie has been named to Inc.’s 30 Under 30, Businessweek’s 25 Under 25, and Forbes’s All-Star Student Entrepreneurs. She has served as a National Women’s Health Week Ambassador, McDonald’s Education Workshop tour speaker, and MassChallenge Alumna-in-Residence. In 2010, Annie took a leave of absence from her undergraduate studies at Harvard University to work on Her Campus full time. (less)

Jason Li is a Stanford undergraduate studying human biology and creative writing. At Stanford, he served as a Northern California youth ambassador to the White House Initiative on AAPIs, works as a peer counselor, organizes Stanford’s annual Asian American issues conference, and edits the Stanford Journal of Public Health. With a group in Stanford Psychiatry, he also wrote, helped organized, and acted in culturally-tailored workshops for Asian-American parents to communicate with their children about mental health issues in the San Francisco Bay Area. Deeply invested in advancing cultural psychiatry and minority
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rights, Jason has researched China’s mental health policy at Peking University and designed mental health intervention programs for China’s left-behind children. Originally from Los Angeles, he’s committed to working tirelessly to fight against mental health stigma, empower minority communities, and build a world of health care access and social justice. (less)

Waverley He is a Harvard undergraduate studying Neurobiology and Computer Science. At Harvard, she co-founded and leads the AAPI Mental Health Initiative, which seeks to explore and address the intersection between culture and mental health. She has written an op-ed about the cultural roots of mental health stigma and has helped organize a Harvard Graduate School of Education conference designed to educate Asian-American parents about the well-being of high school students. She works as a Peer Advising Fellow, addresses social needs of low-income patients through
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Health Leads, and teaches First Aid/CPR/AED to members of the Greater Boston community. Waverley also serves as the Chair of the American Red Cross National Youth Council and a member of the American Red Cross National Diversity Advisory Council. (less)

Eliza Noh, Ph.D., is Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Asian American Studies Program at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF). Her research focuses on suicide and depression among Asian American women in relation to racialization and gender. She has served on the CSUF Suicide Prevention and Response Task Force, Asian American Suicide Prevention Initiative, and L.A. County Department of Mental Health Partners in Suicide Prevention Task Force.
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She has also consulted for the Orange County Asian Pacific Islander Community Alliance (OCAPICA) API Mental Health Symposium. Dr. Noh received the OCAPICA Kokua Award in 2010 and Community Heroes Award in 2015, as well as several Congressional and California Legislature Assembly recognitions, for outstanding service to the diverse communities of Orange County. (less)