Board of Directors

​Sung Sohn
Co-Founder
Sung Sohn is a former bilingual resource and classroom teacher who founded the Korean/English Two-Way Immersion Program within the San Francisco Unified School District in 1994. She completed her M.A. in Education with a concentration in Language and Literacy Education at San Francisco State University, where she received the Distinguished Student Award and the Distinguished Achievement Award for Academic Excellence. Sung is the author of the Korean Two-Way Immersion Curriculum Guide (1994), “Comfort Women” History and Issues: Teacher Resource Guide (2018), and “Comfort Women” History and Issues: Student Resource Guide (2018). Sung is also the director of feminist foreign policy at the US Women’s Caucus at the UN.

​Russ Lowe
Co-founder
Russ Lowe is a former office director at Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s San Francisco office and state liaison for Asian and Asian American Affairs for about two decades. He co-founded the San Francisco Journal, which ran from 1976 to 1980. The San Francisco Journal operated with an all-volunteer staff and focused on issues in the Asian American community, reflecting its struggles and progress, often ignored by the mainstream media. One of the main contributions of this journal was helping to dismantle the stereotyping of Asian Americans as a “model minority” defining AAPIs as a whole, instead highlighting the diversity among different groups.

Christina Tang
Teacher Committee Chair
Christina Tang received her Single Subject Credential in Social Studies at San Francisco State University after completing her B.A. in History at the University of California, Berkeley. She has taught in a public high school since 2010. Christina went on a decolonization study tour in Germany in the summer of 2023.

​Eric Mar
Advisory Committee Chair
Eric Mar is a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (2008–2016), where he worked with local and international organizations to install the Women’s Column of Strength memorial in 2017. He is the past commissioner and president of the San Francisco Board of Education (2000–2008) and has been active in social justice movements for more than 35 years. He is an Emeritus Professor in Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University, where he has taught public policy, government, law, and social movements in the nation’s first and only College of Ethnic Studies. He is co-editor of Mountain Movers: Student Activism and the Emergence of Asian American Studies (UCLA Asian American Studies Press, 2019).

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Interns

Esmé Lee-Gardner
​Esmé Lee-Gardner recently graduated from the University of California San Diego with her bachelor’s in International Political Science. She is a mixed Korean-American born and raised in SF, interested in US Pacific history and the impacts of US militarism and colonialism on identity. Esmé joined ESJF in 2022. 

Pauline Nguyen
​Pauline Nguyen is a research intern for ESJF with a keen interest in community development and education and providing support for vulnerable and marginalized populations. She graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a focus on social issues. In her free time, Pauline enjoys playing video games and watching rabbit videos.