Princeton in Beijing: Past, Present, Future
Alumni Highlights
Greg Gilligan (PiB '93)
Vice President and Managing Director of PGA TOUR China, Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China
As a PiB alum and perennial guest lecturer at PiB summer sessions, Gregory Gilligan is one of the foremost authorities on business in China.
Before the PGA TOUR and AmCham China, Mr. Gilligan served as Managing Director of consultancy APCO Worldwide in Beijing and, before that in two senior executive roles for nearly fourteen years at McDonald’s China. With these roles over a seventeen year China career, Mr. Gilligan has extensive experience here in general management and corporate relations leadership roles as well as a significant record of civic service. In his own words he is "proud of my PiB roots and dedicated to supporting PiB's continued excellence for many years to come."
Thank's to Mr. Gilligan's generosity, PiB will be able to increase funding for all financial aid applicants.
Neysun Mahboubi (PiB '95)
Research Scholar, Center for the Study of Contemporary China, University of Pennsylvania; Visiting Lecturer of Public & International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University
Neysun's primary academic interests are in the areas of administrative law, comparative law, and Chinese law, and his current writing focuses on the development of modern Chinese administrative law.
He is co-chair of the international committee of the ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, consults for The Asia Foundation on Chinese administrative procedure reform, and moderates the Comparative Administrative Law Listserv hosted by Yale Law School. Previously, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, where he taught courses on administrative law and comparative law, and before that a Fellow of the China Law Center, and Tutor-in-Law, at Yale Law School.
He also has served as a trial attorney in the Civil Division (Federal Programs Branch) of the U.S. Department of Justice, and as a law clerk to Judge Douglas P. Woodlock of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. He holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School and an A.B. (Politics and East Asian Studies) from Princeton University.
David Willard (PiB '02)
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of 52 Capital Partners, LLC
52 Capital Partners, LLC, a premier American strategic advisory firm headquartered in Northern California, provides general strategic and business advice to North American and European corporations in connection with mergers and acquisitions and other consequential transactions with a nexus to the Asia-Pacific region. Mr. Willard is responsible for all major aspects of the Firm’s executive management, strategy, client development and thought leadership.
During his career, Mr. Willard has executed and participated in consequential mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts and other landmark corporate deals in the United States, Europe and Asia. He has advised Fortune 500 businesses, investment firms and leading multi-national corporations spanning all major industry verticals and geographies.
Fluent in Mandarin and an internationally-recognized expert on Asia-Pacific economics, Mr. Willard holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law and an A.B. from Princeton University. Mr. Willard also completed the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies at Tsinghua University and the Princeton-in-Beijing Chinese Language Program at Beijing Normal University.
"Princeton-in-Beijing was an extraordinary immersion experience in the heart of China's capital. I could not have asked for a more rewarding summer as a Princeton undergraduate. In addition to attaining professional-level proficiency in Mandarin through the program, I cultivated many wonderful and lasting friendships with my PiB classmates. It's a one-of-a-kind language immersion opportunity, infused with culture, the arts, sightseeing, friendship, exploration and adventure."
Rory Truex (PiB c/o 2004)
Rory Truex (PiB '04)
Associate Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University
Truex studies comparative politics and his research focuses on Chinese politics and theories of authoritarian rule.
His book, Making Autocracy Work: Representation and Responsiveness in Modern China investigates the nature of representation in authoritarian systems, specifically the politics surrounding China's National People's Congress (NPC), and was Winner of the Leon Epstein Outstanding Book Award in 2017.
He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton in 2007 and Ph.D. in political science from Yale in 2014.
Andrea Pasinetti (PiB '05 and '06)
Founder and CEO (former), Teach For China
Andrea Pasinetti is the founder and CEO of Teach For China, a nonprofit organization that recruits university graduates from China and the United States and trains them to serve as full-time teachers in under-resourced Chinese schools.
Pasinetti studied at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. As an undergraduate he pursued certificates in East Asian Studies and European Cultural Studies. Pasinetti founded Teach For China in 2008. That year, while conducting research for his senior thesis, Andrea traveled to seven provinces in China and visited more than 300 schools. Observing the challenges faced by students in low-income Chinese schools helped inspire Andrea to leave Princeton and found the China Education Initiative, which has since been renamed Teach For China.
Pasinetti was recognized in 2011 by China Newsweek Magazine as the most influential foreigner working in China. In the 2012-2013 school year, more than 300 Teach For China Fellows served in 85 schools in China's Yunnan and Guangdong provinces, reaching more than 45,000 students.
"I really had such a fantastic experience at PiB. The caliber of the students there was so high, and 周老师 and all his teachers always operated with so much generosity of spirit. I simply would not be in China today if it hadn't been for the exposure and language skills I gained as a student in Xinsonggongyu."
Adriana Diaz (PiB '08)
National Correspondent, CBS News
Currently based in Chicago, Diaz has done extensive reporting for CBS News on topics including the Flint water crisis, Chicago's gun violence epidemic (including a week spent in gang-controlled territory), the Stoneman-Douglas school shooting and the youth movement that followed, as well as the 2017 Las Vegas shooting.
Previously, Diaz was CBS News' Asia correspondent based in Beijing, China, where she used her Mandarin skills to report from China on U.S.-Chinese relations, Chinese politics, science, and culture. Her other Asia assignments included reporting from North Korea twice, the Korean Demilitarized Zone, South Korea, Japan, and Laos.
Before journalism, Diaz was a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs. She attended Princeton University, majoring in Public and International Affairs at its Woodrow Wilson School. She received her Master's in Public Affairs and Public Administration in a dual degree program at Columbia University and France's Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Science Po).
Princeton Alumni Associations in China
Please note: The following are Princeton University alumni associations.
CALLING ALL PIB ALUMNI!
We'd love to know what you are up to and include you in our community:
If you'd like to update your contact information and stay up to date with news and announcements, please do here: Princeton in Beijing Alumni Network
Please visit us at PiB Haomas and ask to join the group. Only PiB alumni can add other PiB alumni to this group, so feel free to invite your fellow PiBers once you're in.