Yan Geling - Yan Geling is one of the most acclaimed contemporary novelists and screenwriters writing in the Chinese language today and a well-established writer in English with novels The Banquet Bug and The Lost Daughter of Happiness.
She published her first novel in 1985 and has since produced a steady stream of novels, short stories, novellas, essays and scripts. She is the recipient of Taiwan's Golden Horse Award and Sina.com's Best Writer of 2008, among others. Yan's works have been translated into Dutch, English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, and Thai.
Yang Lan - Ms. Yang Lan is a TV Anchor and Talk Show Host and the Chair of the Sun Culture Foundation.
Wu Qing - From 1969-2000, Wu Qing was an esteemed professor of English at Beijing Foreign Studies University. She has served since 1984 as a Deputy to the Beijing Haidan District People's Congress, focusing on the rule of law and transparency in government. Professor Wu Qing is a well-known advocate for women's rights in China and the 2001 recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, also known as "Asia's Nobel Prize." She was nominated by the Schwab Foundation Network as one of the World's Outstanding Social Entrepreneurs of 2003.
Debora Spar - Debora L. Spar is the seventh president of Barnard College. A political scientist by training, her research focuses on issues of international political economy, examining how rules are established in new or emerging markets and how firms and governments together shape the evolving global economy. Spar is the author of numerous articles and books, including most recently Ruling the Waves: Cycles of Invention, Chaos, and Wealth from the Compass to the Internet and The Baby Business: How Money, Science, and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception.
Prior to coming to Barnard, Spar was the Spangler Family Professor at Harvard Business School and Senior Associate Dean, Director of Research.
Ruby Yang - Ruby Yang is an Academy Award-winning Chinese American filmmaker, known worldwide for her bold and controversial work, including The Blood of Yungzhou District and Tongzhi in Love. She is based in Beijing, where she directs public service announcements and documentary work as part of the Chang Ai Media Project (formerly the China AIDS Media Project), an HIV/AIDS prevention campaign that has reached hundreds of millions of Chinese viewers.
Barnard College hosts some of China's most prominent and influential women to share their success stories and unique perspectives on leadership and change.
The symposium, Women Changing China, honored the legacy of Kang Tongbi, one of China's earliest feminists and the first Asian woman to attend Barnard a century ago. Her activism contributed to a wave of improvements for the lives of women in her country, including the elimination of footbinding, and her legacy of passion and courage lives on in the dynamic women who continue to shape and develop China today.