About Us

The ResponsibleChina Team:

• Erica Schlaikjer, Founder and Editor, Washington D.C. correspondent

• CC Huang, Beijing correspondent

• Carla Fernandez, New York correspondent

• Mark Hiew, Chengdu correspondent

• Sophia Mendelsohn, Shanghai correspondent

• Van Yang, Beijing correspondent

Erica Lee Schlaikjer, Founder and Editor
erica [at] responsiblechina.com

My name is Erica Schlaikjer, a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in Evanston, Ill., where I double-majored in journalism and international studies. Currently, I am the Information and Innovation Intern for EMBARQ – The WRI Center for Sustainable Transport – of the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank in Washington, DC.

Previously, I was writing and reporting for the Focus section of Crain’s Chicago Business, a weekly business publication based in Chicago, Ill.

I was born in Fairfax, Va., and subsequently moved around the world as the daughter of a U.S. Foreign Service officer and aboriginal Taiwanese mother. I have lived in Guangzhou, China; Taipei, Taiwan; Beijing, Geneva, Hong Kong; Germantown, Md., where I attended public high school; and Chicago.

I have held several magazine internships at local, national and international publications, including The Chicago Reporter, Crain’s Chicago Business and National Geographic. I also served as editor-at-large for Abroad View magazine, a student-run, non-profit magazine about global education and study abroad.

In the fall of 2005, I withdrew from school for three months to live in Shanghai, China, where I interned at Shanghai Talk, an English-language city living magazine. I also pursued an independent research project, courtesy of the Medill-sponsored Eric Lund Global Research & Reporting Grant, focusing on China’s Internet youth culture. While working and living abroad, I traveled to Hangzhou, Suzhou, Beijing and Nanjing.

In February 2007, I was honored with a foundational scholarship from the Overseas Press Club, and I hope to pursue a career involving journalism, international affairs, nonprofits and environmental sustainability.

From January to April 2008, I studied Mandarin at the Chinese Culture University in Taipei, Taiwan, thanks to the Taiwan Ministry of Education’s Huayu Enrichment Scholarship for Chinese language training. You can read about my experiences at makapahai.wordpress.com.

See my online portfolio at www.eschlaik.com.

CC Huang, Beijing correspondent
cc.huang2 [at] gmail.com

My name is CC Huang and I am an international affairs major with minors in philosophy and Chinese at George Washington University (GWU). I was born in Hubei, China but immigrated to the United States when I was three to join my parents in Seattle. Most of my memorable life took place in Iowa City, Iowa.

I became increasingly aware of the international community and global issues through policy debate in high school and developed a strong sense of curiosity through involvement with journalism.

Since then, I’ve had a variety of work experiences in Washington, D.C. I’ve worked with the World Security Institute as a development intern, volunteered as a Chinese teacher through the Global Languages Network, and coached policy debate at Georgetown Day School. I also helped Joshua Eisenman, a fellow in Asia Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, conduct research on party relations between China and various African governments.

This past semester, I’ve canvassed for Barack Obama, worked as an admissions assistant for the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission, and conducted research for Roy Richard Grinker, an International Affairs, Anthropology, and Human Sciences professor at GWU, on the politicization of science and public-science relations.

Last summer, I worked in Beijing as an assistant editor for China Security, a foreign policy journal that is dedicated to bringing the perspective of Chinese scholars to Washington. I am now back in Beijing to study at Peking University. I plan to stay here for a year to improve my Chinese and work with organizations committed to human rights and environmentalism. I also have my own blog, Chinamatic.

Carla Fernandez, New York correspondent
carla.rabbitt [at] gmail.com

My name is Carla Fernandez, and I am a senior year undergraduate student at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Studies.  I am concentrating in “Human Development and Socially Responsible Supply Chains” through a blend of public policy, economics and social analysis courses.  I am originally from the coastal town of Monterey, California, an area known for its authors, its produce, and one knock-your-socks-off aquarium.

I trace my passion for poverty alleviation back to a stint with Oxfam at NYU , a student activist group that raises awareness about global issues and petitions for fair labor standards.  Through the grape vine I connected with World of Good Development Organization from Berkeley, Calif., an amazing group that is developing a wage standardization tool for artisans selling on the fair trade market.  With support from the MLK Scholars Program, I traveled to Guatemala , El Salvador and Belize to promote World of Good’s Fair Trade Wage Guide, and spent long afternoons chatting, weaving, and eating with wonderful women entrepreneurs living and working in the developing world.

Since then I have planned some wild parties for Women’s World Banking , a global network of microfinance providers, and co-managed the ABC Home and Planet Foundation, a socially responsible endeavor of the New York interior design institution ABC Carpet and Home.  I also contributed to the online visual encyclopedia “How Stuff is Made”, traveling to a factory in Austin Texas and back to research how gold class rings are produced.

I spent the Spring of 2008 studying at East China Normal University, NYU’s partner university in Shanghai.  While in Shanghai, I did some work on my social entrepreneurial guanxi through an internship with ?WhatIf! Innovation Company. I spent the semester meeting and interviewing some of the city’s socially responsible movers and shakers through the project “Shanghai in the Limelight” and am excited to share their stories with you on ResponsibleChina.com!

For now, I am based in NYC, and am spending the summer writing speeches and doing research for Social Accountability International, an international NGO that promotes human rights in the workplace.  I am a Reynolds Scholar(check us out if you are interested in social entrepreneurship).  I have the best older brother named Jose who thankfully lives only five minutes away from my apartment in the East Village. I just got SCUBA certified on Ko Phi Phi in Thailand, and my favorite restaurant in the entire world is a little Pakistani cafe in Kashgar, Xinjiang.

Mark Hiew, Chengdu correspondent
mark.hiew [at] gmail.com

My name is Mark Hiew. I am currently based in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, where, in addition to writing, I teach English and study Chinese. I moved to Chengdu in August 2007. Prior to that, I worked in the knowledge management unit of CHF International, an international development NGO based in Silver Spring, Md. from 2005 to 2007.

I was born in Perth, Western Australia to Chinese-Malaysian parents. I moved to Ellicott City, Md., where I completed high school and received a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Maryland at College Park.

During college, I was heavily (and remain somewhat) involved in policy advocacy on issues related to global HIV/AIDS, youth empowerment and comprehensive sexuality education, serving as a community organizer on the International Youth Leadership Council for Advocates for Youth, a sexual and reproductive health rights NGO in Washington D.C. and Student Global AIDS Campaign, a branch of the youth-led NGO Global Justice.

I covered the UN GA Special Session on AIDS in May 2006 for the blog Reproductive Health Reality Check and was a member of the international media team for the Toronto YouthForce at the International AIDS Conference (IAC) in Toronto in August 2006.

I currently sit on the board of Advocates for Youth and volunteer online for Taking IT Global, an information communication technology for development (ICT4D) NGO based in Toronto. I write on local Chengdu affairs for Chengdoo magazine, the city’s premier English language publication and keep an occasional personal blog (“Flatnose in China “).

I am particularly interested in youth activism, social entrepreneurialism and the economics of sustainability.

I once had a mullet, which I cut off in exchange for donations to a Fuel-EfficientStoves project in Darfur.

My favorite Sichuanese phrase is: “Hao fao!” (“how annoying!”)

Sophia Mendelsohn, Shanghai correspondent
sophia.mendelsohn [at] gmail.com

I am living in Shanghai and have been for three years. China, no stranger to speed, has seen drastic changes in press and public attitude toward sustainability and CSR immensely in that time period. Perhaps a revolution decades in the making or a sudden burst of focus on our time-sensitive environment. Regardless of how you contextualize it, there is more news and information out there than ever on the topics. I try to help ResponsibleChina readers focus on the heavy hitting studies and representative cases.

My greatest interest is spreading environmental education in the hopes of helping take CSR from option to mainstream in China. I work at The Jane Goodall Institute‘s Shanghai Roots & Shoots office managing a program called Eco-Office, which helps offices reduce their energy and supply consumption. We work with multi-nationals and China-based companies to prove that their CSR platforms in Asia hold equal status and importance to those in any other country.

For three years, I have also worked with exporters and still spend a fair amount of time in factories outside of major cities in China. Everyday I see opportunities for us to save on costs and reduce waste, without stopping progress. My previous job was in corporate communications where my favorite projects always had to do with CSR and sustainability. The power consumers have to move these things forward cannot be underestimated. Remember: you are the customer.

Before SH, I lived in Kunming, China (all the way south) and Harbin, China (all the way north). I still have a soft spot in my heart for Harbin. How could you not for a place where they BBQ outside all Siberian-winter long and keep their ice cream frozen in snow banks instead of freezers?

I speak, read and write Chinese at an extremely advanced level and majored in East Asian Studies in university in America. All together I have been in Asia for over four years. This is my first blog.

Van Yang, Beijing correspondent
van.k.yang [at] gmail.com

Van is a strapping young lad born in Taiwan and raised in Chicago.  He attended Lawrence University, a liberal arts college in Appleton, Wisc., for his undergraduate degree.  Abandoning his early childhood dreams of becoming a Indiana Jones, his studies soon focused on environmental policy, history, and philosophy, and he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in government and political science.

His passion is for urban planning and green building.  In 2005 he worked with the International Institute of Sustainable Development and co-authored “Growing into Risk: Emerging Environment and Security issues in China” He has worked with the US Green Building Council to promote market-based green building initiatives in China, serving as a interpreter and guide for CEO Rick Fedrizzi, and on the International Hosting Committee of the Greenbuild conference.

Van believes his greatest contribution will come from his background in IT business consulting and being a big nerd.  He is currently working with Green Dragon Media on a documentary to inform the world about the complicated issues that China faces as well as the efforts that China has made to strive for sustainability.

Van has traveled much of the world: he has snowboarded on the slopes of France, rollerbladed in the streets of Switzerland, windsurfed around the islands of Greece, bartered through the markets of Turkey, endured the hellish trains (yet mouth-watering food) of Bulgaria, explored the monasteries of Japan, and found stillness in the mountains of Bhutan.

Each morning, Van looks to create a healthy, balanced life for himself and others.  You can find out more about him and his escapades at http://www.vanyang.com.

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