People
Board of Directors
The Board of Directors of ARFC provides oversight and support for ARFC. They are actively involved in fundraising for our work, including through personal donations, doing donor outreach and hosting events. The current Board consists of seven members bringing various important skills to the development of ARFC. These members include:
Perry Chen
Board Treasurer
Perry Chen is one of the founders of the pear-e consulting group with several colleagues who leverage their knowledge and experiences in the field of children, youth, and families, to support a variety of entities in the public education, nonprofit, and philanthropic sectors. From 2000-2005, Perry was the Executive Director of OASES (Oakland Asian Students Educational Services), a nonprofit corporation that empowers youth who have limited resources to maximize their potential. Under his leadership, OASES expanded to serve over 400 youth and families in low-income neighborhoods, and piloted key initiatives in parent & guardian education, bridging the digital divide, and services for new immigrant teenagers. Over the years, Perry has also developed an expertise in law, civil rights, and community organizing. He has held past positions as a corporate litigator (Morrison & Foerster LLP), a legal aid counsel (Harvard Legal Aid Bureau), and a public interest law professor (New College School of Law). Mr. Chen has received numerous community leadership awards and has served on several community boards & commissions. He graduated with honors from Harvard University and Harvard Law School.
Teresa Law Spitzer
Board Chairperson
Teresa Spitzer was born and raised in southern California, and moved to Asia with her family in 1985. She received her MBA from Columbia University in 1981 and was an international banker in several Asian countries. She has served on a number of boards, including the Shanghai American School. She is involved in a number of organizations which combine her background in Asia with her commitment to helping others.
Noel Sanborn
Noel Sanborn has a long and deep connection to China having married a Hong Kong-Chinese wife and later living in Hong Kong for 12 years. He has traveled extensively in the PRC since 1981 and seen dramatic changes as well as continued grinding poverty. Noel brings a pragmatic business perspective to ARFC. He has a BBA in finance and marketing and an MBA. He began his career with a consulting firm advising on economic development projects in Africa and the Middle East. His work in Asia was primarily providing financial and management assistance to small, rapidly growing companies. In 1999, Noel settled in Palo Alto with his wife and three boys though he continues to have family and business ties to Asia. In his spare time he is involved with the Palo Alto schools, advocates for a couple of Middle East peace organizations and is affiliated with another organization that, like ARFC, is seeking to stem the tide or AIDS in China.
Tri D. Do, MD
Tri Do joined Roche Molecular Diagnostics in July 2008 as Director of Clinical Research for Virology, overseeing clinical trials leading to regulatory approval for HIV, hepatitis and other viral tests. He is also an Assistant Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS). He completed a post-doctoral fellowship in HIV/AIDS research at UCSF in 2004, during which time he received a Master's of Public Health in Epidemiology at UC Berkeley. As a professor of Medicine from 2004-2008, his NIH-funded research in the US and internationally focused on HIV disparities among ethnic minorities and men who have sex with men. He was an attending physician at the UCSF Positive Health Program (PHP) at San Francisco General Hospital, a Center of Excellence for AIDS care and research from 2001-2008. He also worked to improve the quality of health care for HIV-positive inmates and to increase access to HIV prevention within California's prison system. He has served on the board of non-profit organizations such as the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association and the Gay Vietnamese Alliance.
Elsa Fan
Elsa Fan is currently pursuing her PhD in Anthropology at the University of California at Irvine. Prior to this, she was the Asia program officer with the Global Fund for Children, managing the grantmaking portfolio for the region. She served as a program officer for the UN Development Programme in China and Timor-Leste for several years and was a project officer for the Development Organisation of Rural Sichuan, where she worked to implement rural development projects in Sichuan Province. Elsa received a bachelor's degree from the University of California at Berkeley in anthropology and psychology and a master's degree in development studies and anthropology from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Elsa is fluent in Mandarin.
Alissa May
Board Secretary
Alissa May joined the ARFC Board in January 2009. After seeking her education in international affairs with a concentration on East Asia and Mandarin Chinese, she has since dedicated her professional and personal time to the areas of volunteerism and non-profit work. Alissa has worked with the American Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, UNICEF, UNESCO, San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association (SPUR), Chinese American International School and Chinese Children Adoption International. Alissa holds a masters degree from Kings College London in International Peace and Security and an undergraduate degree from Boston University, majoring in International Relations and a minor in Mandarin Chinese Language. Alissa has lived and worked around the world in London, UK; Bejing, China; Santa Ana, Costa Rica; New York and San Francisco. She speaks Mandarin, Spanish, and English.
Calvin Hao, A.I.A.
Calvin Hao is an architect who has worked in the profession for 20 years. After many years working with several Bay Area design firms, he left the private sector to join the City of Oakland to manage its capital projects. Calvin received his BA with a Major in Architecture from UC Berkeley. He speaks Mandarin, Spanish and English.
Board of Advisors
Max Lau
Max Lau is the publisher and editor of Noodle Magazine, the first major periodical in the US published quarterly with the perspective of gay Asian and Pacific Islander men. Noodle takes an irreverent voice in satisfying both lifestyle and community-oriented interests of gay API men. He co-founded the Cal Asian Lesbian, Bisexual and Gay Alliances You-nited, (a.k.a. CAL B GAY) while at Berkeley, was past co-chair of the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance (GAPA) and organized the First National Queer API Student Conference at Cal and the First US-Tongzhi Conference at UCSF.
Steve Lew
Mr. Lew has been involved in HIV work in Asian and Pacific Islander communities in the U.S. over the past 17 years, as a community activist, public policy advocate, service provider and organizational capacity builder. He co-founded the GAPA Community HIV Project (GCHP) in 1989 and led the Living Well Project as executive director through 1996. Throughout this time, Steve has served on local and national public policy advisory bodies including President Clinton's HIV AIDS Advisory Council, from 1995 ñ 1999. As a senior staff consultant at CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, Steve continues to work with HIV nonprofits in building organizational capacity, particularly in the areas of fund development, strategic planning and board development. Mr. Lew also serves as an officer of the board of directors of Project Inform, a national HIV treatment information and advocacy organization in the U.S.
Fengshi Wu
Fengshi Wu is an assistant professor with the Department of Politics and Public Administration, Chinese University of Hong Kong. She obtained her Ph.D. in political science from University of Maryland, College Park with specializations in international relations and comparative politics. Prof. Wu's research interests include transnational advocacy, social movements, and global environmental and public health politics. She has been doing research on AIDS prevention and relief work in China since 2003 and presented and published a number of papers on the topics of transnational advocacy networks and environmental issues in China. She served as project consultant for the U.S.-China Environmental Relations Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center from 2001 to 2002 and was awarded the Graduate Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences in 2003.
Daniel Y. Chin
Dan Chin is the Chief Financial Officer for Ghilotti Bros., Inc., a Bay Area privately owned construction company with revenues over $100 million. He was previously the Vice President and CFO/Chief Accounting Officer for Marelich Mechanical Co., Inc., an EMCOR Company (Fortune 500, NYSE symbol, EME), headquartered in Hayward, CA with 5 West Coast divisional offices and consolidated annual revenues over $250 Million. In 2008, Dan was a Bay Area CFO of the Year Finalist, awarded by the San Francisco Business Times and the Larkin St. Youth Services. Dan is a founding Board member of ARFC. In the Bay Area, his volunteer work also includes serving on the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance Board from 1995 to 2002, 2.5 years as Co-Chair; Asian Pacific Islander Wellness Center - Brothers Campaign Co-Chair 2001; GAPA George Choy Scholarship Fund Chair (Horizon Foundation-Fiscal Sponsor) 2000, and South Bay Queer & Asian Chair & Advisory 1993-96. He received his BA in Economics with a minor emphasis in Business Administration from the University of California Berkeley in 1987.
Staff
Humphrey Wou
Executive Director
Humphrey Wou is the co-founder and Director of the AIDS Relief Fund for China (ARFC), a non-profit organization based in San Francisco that provides small grants to grassroots AIDS service and education organizations in China. Besides establishing ARFCs small grants program, he has also been organizing psychosocial support projects for the urban gays, as well as coordinating nutrition and microloan programs for the rural villagers with HIV. Under his leadership, ARFC has funded many one of a kind projects and organizations, like the Penpal Club and the Sunshine Doctors. Humphrey applies his video making skills in his activism. His short films on people with HIV have been widely distributed among Chinas activist community.
Volunteers
Christopher Auyeung, Charles "Chas" Belov, Mark Jacobsen and Andres Tong contributed to the design and implementation of this web site. In the past two years numerous volunteers have supported ARFC with generous contributions of their time, energy, and talents.