Julia Chang Bloch

President of the U.S.-China Education Trust

Julia Chang Bloch is the President of the U.S.-China Education Trust, a program devoted to promoting American Studies in China.

She is also the Ambassador-in-Residence at the University of Maryland-College Park Institute for Global Chinese Affairs — and the Starr Senior Fellow for U.S.-China Relations at Peking University in Beijing and Fudan University in Shanghai, China.

From 1996 to 1998, Ms. Bloch was President and CEO of the United States-Japan Foundation — a private grant-making institution. From 1993 to 1996, she was Group Executive Vice President at Bank of America, where she created and headed the Corporate Relations Department.

Ms. Bloch has had an extensive career in international affairs. She began as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sabah, Malaysia in 1964 — and was the first Asian American to hold the rank of U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Nepal, in 1989.

From 1981 to 1988, Ms. Bloch served at the U.S. Agency for International Development as Assistant Administrator for Food for Peace and Voluntary Assistance and as Assistant Administrator for Asia and the Near East — positions appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

A native of China, Ms. Bloch came to the United States at age nine and grew up in San Francisco.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in Communications and Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley in 1964 — and a master’s degree in Government and East Asia Regional Studies from Harvard University in 1967.

She was also awarded an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from Northeastern University in 1986.