Please join for a special roundtable event on Capitol Hill, featuring distinguished EWC Board of Governor Members who will share perspectives on US relations with the Pacific Islands region, India/South Asia, and China/East Asia.
Speakers
Hilde Heine
Senator representing Aur Atoll and Former President of the Republic of the Marshall Islands
EWC Board of Governors
Hilda Heine is a Marshallese educator and politician, who served as the eighth President of the Marshall Islands. President Heine is the first woman to serve as President in the Marshall Islands, and the first woman to serve as Head of State in any of the five Micronesian countries in the North Pacific.She is currently serving as an elected Senator representing Aur Atoll in the Nitijeļā (Legislature).
Prior to assuming office, she served as the Minister of Education. In 2019, Dr. Heine became the first female Chancellor of the University of the South Pacific (USP), a member of the Council of Regional Organizations of the Pacific (CROP). Dr. Heine was the first individual in the Marshall Islands – man or woman - to earn a doctorate degree, and the founder of the women's rights group Women United Together Marshall Islands (WUTMI). In 2000, Dr. Heine founded Women United Together Marshall Islands (WUTMI), a women's rights group. Since 2005, she had been Pacific Resources for Education and Learning's (PREL) Director at the Pacific Comprehensive Assistance Center.
David Stilwell
Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Former Assistant Secretary of State, East Asia & Pacific
EWC Board of Governors
David R. Stilwell served as the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs between 2019-2021. Prior to his appointment as Assistant Secretary, he served in the Air Force for 35 years, beginning as an enlisted Korean linguist in 1980, and retiring in 2015 in the rank of Brigadier General as the Asia advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
He served multiple tours of duty in Japan and Korea as a linguist, a fighter pilot, and a commander. He also served as the Defense Attaché at the US Embassy in Beijing, People’s Republic of China, 2011-2013. Mr. Stilwell directed the China Strategic Focus Group at US Indo-Pacific Command in Hawai‘i 2017- 2019 and was an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu from 2016-2019