Cynthia Chao received her B.A. in 1972 in English Literature at Fu-Jen University, Taiwan. She came to United State as a merchant in 1975 and has been residing in New York since then. She is one of the founders of World Young Men Buddhist Association(WYMBA), a leading Buddhist organization in the Chinese community in New York City. The WYMBA is well-known for its open-minded approach to Buddhism. It has sponsored talks and free discussions on many different Buddhist Schools.
Cynthia founded a Chinese Buddhist magazine, <>, and was its editor from 1986 to 2000. She is also a translator of many Buddhism-related articles. "The Zen Teachings of Jesus," a book originally published in English, was translated by Cynthia into Chinese and was published in Taiwan in April 2004. In recent years, Cynthia has been traveling to the "Roof of the World" to explore and document the Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, and study the lifestyle on the plateau.
Cynthia returned from Qinghai in August 2004 and brought back documentary images about the lifestyle ofa group of teenager monks who live in a faraway village in the valley of Qinghai-Tibetan plateau wherethe Yellow River was originated."
Dr. Thomas Tam was born on April 15, 1946 in Fujian, China, during the Chinese Civil War. He spent his childhood in Hong Kong where his parents had to rebuild their home from the ground up. Dr. Tam and his family immigrated to New York in 1964. He received BA in physics from City College of New York (1968), M.A. in film-making from Montclair State University (1978), M.P.H. from Columbia University School of Public Health (1980); and Ph.D. in SocioMedical Sciences from Columbia University (1983). He is Chairman of the Asian American Higher Education Council, and Executive Director of Asian American/Asian Research Institute, as well as the President of Oishi Movies, Inc. which produced a feature: Sunrise on Mulberry Street.
After graduating from City College of New York, Tam developed an active interest in community improvement in Chinatown, when he initiated a ten-day health fair which screened two thousand five hundred residents, leading to the establishment of Chinatown Health Clinic, now known as the Charles B. Wang Health Center. Tam’s career in community health continued when he became administrators of various City-wide health agencies. He taught at Columbia University, Herbert Lehman College, and St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia.
In 1989, he was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York as the first Chinese American member. Dr. Tam worked with a group of faculty members to establish the Asian American Higher Education Council, an organization which addresses critical issues concerning higher education in the Asian American community. Under Tam’s leadership, this organization has successfully organized numerous conferences and the creation of the Asian American / Asian Research Institute (AAARI), where he served as Executive Director from 2001 to 2006.
In addition to his contribution to the fields of community health and higher education, Dr. Tam also has an abiding interest in movie making, an avocation which he has nurtured since college. He has produced many short movies which have been exhibited at various institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art. Tam has also founded the Asian American Film Festival in 1972, which became Asian Cine Vision, an organization with international recognition for showcasing movies from Asian/Asian American artists. Dr. Tam is a recent convert to Buddhism and has completed a documentary video, En Route to Lhasa.
Dr. Tam is survived by his wife Margaret, his daughter Anika, and step-children Emily and Victor.
