Transcending Boundaries
Maria Africa Beebe, Ph.D.
Director
Global Networks;
Board Member
Filipina Women's Network
Harmonizing Global Teams in Afghanistan
Maria is a sociolinguist interested in intercultural communication and has an M.A. in Anthropology and Ph.D. in Education from Stanford University.
Her 25 years of global development work and research interests led her to launch Global Networks, a Portland, OR-based consulting, research, and education not-for-profit that works at the intersection of technology, content, and pedagogy.
Her research interests include critical discourse analysis, women’s leadership, and ICT for development. She co-edited the book AfricaDotEdu: IT Opportunities and Higher Education in Africa.
She read papers at international conferences; including a paper on MOOCs, m-Learning and ICT Smart Hubs at the World Summit on Information Society in Geneva in 2013.
Maria had academic appointments at Washington State University and Oregon State University while working on international development programs. She is a visiting researcher at Portland State University.
Penelope V. Flores, Ph.D.
Professor Emerita
San Francisco State University
Ad Astra per Aspira: To the Stars Through Difficulties
Penelope is Professor Emerita, San Francisco State University, Multicultural Educa-tion, Mathematics Education, and Teacher Credential program. She is an author, writer, and editor of academic journals.
She earned her Ph. D. in Comparative and International Education at the University of Chicago, Masters in Educational Leadership at the University of Pennyslvania and B.Sc. in Education from the Philippine Normal University.
She states: “I am a teacher of teachers in a post-modern world where the rights of ethnic minorities and women are continually challenged. The singularity of preparing credentialed teachers is an event of great importance to me because everything that follows it is altered forever.”
She served on the Boards of the Illinois and California Humanities Councils. She was a consultant to UNESCO, USAID, AED, UNDP, and to Ministries of Education in Nepal, Indonesia, & Ethiopia. She read papers at the World Council for Curriculum and Instruction conferences. As co-founder & past president of PAWA, she created the Manuel G. Flores Prize Fund to support FilAm writers.
Mira is a second-generation Filipina American. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband Charles and their two beautiful children, Eva and Charlie.
Mira was born in and grew up in California in a multi-generational household with her mother, Lally Soriano; father, Eliezer B. Soriano; twin sisters, Karen and Liza; and her grandparents.
Mira is a California-credentialed teacher with a Masters of Education in Learning and Technology. She is trained in Design Thinking through Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford and has a Professional Certification in Project Management from Stanford University.
Mira has a background in Graphic Design with a specialization in reading and working with dyslexic learners. She volunteers at the Marine Science Institute. She is also the Director of Design Thinking at Workshop Education and the founder and director of Peace Game online.
Lenore is an extraordinary printmaker who has led an extraordinary life. She is a pioneer and leader in printmaking.
She received the Presidential Award, the Pamana ng Pilipino Award for Filipinos overseas in 2004 and the Outstanding Professional Award for Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines Alumni Association in 2005 for her accomplishments in the arts.
She enjoys a growing audience of collectors in the U. S., where she was awarded a prestigious Jackson Pollock-Lee Krasner Foundation Grant, among other honors.
She represented the Philippines at the UN World Women Conference Exhibit in New York in 2000 and OPEN, the International Exhibition of Sculptures and Installations, in Venice, Italy in 2002.
Her work is included in the U. S. Library of Congress and the private collection of Agnes Gund, Chairman and President Emerita of The Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. Ms. Gund wrote the foreword to Profound Afterglow: The Prints of Lenore RS Lim (2005).
She is the president and founder of the Lenore RS Lim Foundation for the Arts.
Isabelita Manalastas-Watanabe
President and Representative Director
SPEED Money Transfer Japan
JAPAN: A LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP
Isabelita has studied, lived, and worked in Japan for more than half of her life. She started her Japan career as Deputy Director for Investment at the ASEAN-Japan Centre in Tokyo. She helped set up the Philippine National Bank’s Japan presence, headed it, while also being Area Head for Asia and the Pacific.
She was moved to Rome as First Senior Vice President and Area Head for Europe, Israel, and Africa, and resigned in June 2010, when she decided it was time to be with family. She became a full time wife and mother, but that was to last only a couple of months.
Then she was back in the rat race, this time as the President of Speed Money Transfer Japan K.K. which she established.
Lita lives in Tokyo with husband Fumio. Between the two of them and their children Anri, Chiori and JC, they speak 4 languages, have 3 nationalities, maintain 4 residences, and have a Ph.D. degree (Sophia University), an M.A. (Tsukuba University), MBA (Wharton), a B.A. (UC San Diego), and a Diploma in Music (Cello, Toho Gakuen).
They continue to live exciting, out of the ordinary lives as a family, and enjoy every moment. Lita continues to work 6/7, 12/24 as she has done during most of her professional life, but still manages to cook homemade meals, for an ever-appreciative husband who thinks Lita is a “genius” at being able to whip up a good meal in 15 minutes’ time.
Imelda Nicolas
Chairperson
Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO);
Cabinet-level Secretary
Office of the President of the Philippines
LEARNINGS FROM SEVERAL LIFETIMES
Imelda is Chairperson of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO), a Cabinet-level position under the President of the Philippines.
She chairs the Metropolis Asia Secretariat, is a member of the Metropolis International Steering Committee, and is on the Experts’ Advisory Committee of the World Bank’s Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development.
She teaches a course on International Migration and Development for the Metropolis Professional Development.
She was Cabinet-level Sec. of the National Anti-Poverty Commision, former Chair of the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women, Presidential Asst. for monitoring government funded infrastructures, Chair of the Women’s Business Council of the Philippines, delegate to the APEC Business Advisory Council & head of the Philippine delegation at the Beijing UN Conference on Women in 1995.
She was VP for Development at the New York-based TLC Beatrice International Holdings, Inc., & Managing Director at TLC Beatrice China. Secretary Nicolas graduated magna cum laude from St. Theresa’s College & completed graduate courses in Arts History at Columbia University.
Loida Nicolas Lewis served as Chair and CEO of TLC Beatrice International, a $2 billion multinational food company. She assumed leadership of the company after the death of her husband, the African-American financier Reginal F. Lewis. She provided successful, compassionate, faith based leadership of the company and after six years sold the company for a significant profit.
Loida was recognized as the Top Business Woman in America in 1995. She currently heads a family investment firm.
Previously she was General Attorney with the Immigration and Naturalization Service after winning a discrimination case against the INS. Her best-selling book How to Get a Green Card now is in its 10th edition.
Loida is a philanthropist and a leader of the Filipino-American community. She founded The Lewis College (TLC) in Sorsogon in 1998.
As noted in a recent Philippine Daily Inquirer article, she credits her father for her interest in politics and her entrepreneurial spirit. The article also noted that her two daughters graduated from Harvard and have successful careers.
Patricia Ann V. Paez
Ambassador of the Republic of the Philippines to Poland and Non-resident Ambassador to Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia
BEING A WOMAN AMBASSADOR
Patricia is the Ambassador of the Philippines to Poland and non-resident Ambassador to Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. She is the first female Philippine ambassador to Poland since the Embassy reopened in 2009.
Since she assumed her official duty in March 2013, the Philippine Embassy has participated in the Congress of Women sponsored by Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and 40th anniversary of Poland-Philippines diplomatic relations with a feature on the Philippines in Gazeta Wyborcza and an interview in Poland’s top-rated morning show about the status of women in the Philippines and the issue of human trafficking.
She served two Presidents as Presidential Assistant for Foreign Affairs and as Executive Director of the Office of the Presidential Adviser for Foreign Affairs. She was assigned to the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C. She received the Presidential Order of Merit and the Gawad Mabini Award for her exemplary service in foreign policy and diplomacy.
She graduated with a M. A. in International Relations from the Australian National University in Canberra and was a Fellow in Public Policy at the University of Maryland, U.S.
Delia B. Rodriguez-Amaya, Ph.D.
President
International Academy of Food Science and Technology;
Senior Visiting Professor
Universidade Federal da Fronteira Sul
UPHILL ROAD TO SUCCESS IN SCIENCE
Delia is the first woman president of the International Academy of Food Science and Technology.
She was professor of Food Engineering, University of Campinas, Brazil (1977-2010) where she was Chair of the Department of Food Science, Coordinator of the Faculty Graduate Programs and Faculty Academic Council. She was advisor for 48 Masters and Doctoral theses.
Her awards include: Presidential Award Pamana ng Pilipino, East-West Center Distinguished Alumni, Brazilian Society of Food Science and Technology’s Andre Tosello Award, Philippine Association of Food Technologists’ 50th Anniversary Recognition Award.
Her research achievements include: more than 240 publications, invited lectures and 240 conference paper presentations in 25 countries.
She is a visiting Professor at a new Brazilian federal university, scientific adviser of the International Foundation for Science, editor of Current Opinion in Food Chemistry and Biochemistry, and on the editorial board of five scientific journals. Her Ph.D. is in Agricultural Chemistry from the University of California Davis.
Astrid S. Tuminez, Ph.D.
Regional Director
Microsoft Legal and Corporate Affairs, Southeast Asia
A Filipina in a Word, a Filipina in the World
Astrid joined Microsoft in 2012 as Regional Director, Legal and Corporate Affairs (Southeast Asia). She is an Adjunct Professor and former Vice-Dean at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
At the U. S. Institute of Peace she was involved in peace negotiations between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. She was a research director at AIG Global Investments and Moscow office director of the Harvard Project on Strengthening Democratic Institutions.
She is the author of Russian Nationalism since 1856. Ideology and the Making of Foreign Policy and “Rising to the Top? A Report on Women’s Leadership in Asia.”
Astrid was a U. S. Institute of Peace Scholar, a Salzburg Freeman Fellow, a Harvard Kennedy School Fellow, and a Distinguished Alumna of Brigham Young University.
She received fellowships from the Social Science Research Council and MacArthur Foundation, and serves on the boards of the Bank of the Philippine Islands and Singapore American School.
She has a Master’s in Soviet Studies from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT.