Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch

Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch is Founder and Executive Chairman, US-China Education Trust, a nonprofit organization that promotes U.S.- China relations through education and exchange for next-generation leaders.

Appointed as the US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Nepal in 1989, Ambassador Bloch is the first Asian American to hold such rank in U.S. history. She began her career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sabah, Malaysia in 1964.  From 1981 to 1988, Ambassador Bloch served at the U.S. Agency for International Development as Assistant Administrator of Food for Peace and Voluntary Assistance and as Assistant Administrator for Asia and the Near East.   

She also was a Senate professional staff member; the Deputy Director of the Office of African Affairs at the U.S. Information Agency; a Fellow of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and an Associate of the U.S.-Japan Relations Program of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard.

After 25 years in government service, Ambassador Bloch moved to the corporate sector in 1993, becoming Group Executive Vice President at the Bank of America.  From 1996 to 1998, Ambassador served as President and CEO of the United States-Japan Foundation, a private grant making institution. Beginning in 1998, Ambassador Bloch shifted her focus to China, first becoming Visiting Professor at the Institute for International Relations and Executive Vice Chairman of the American Studies Center at Peking University, and subsequently affiliating with Fudan University in Shanghai as well as the University of Maryland as Ambassador-in-Residence at the Institute for Global Chinese Affairs.

Originally from China and immigrating to the U.S. at age nine, Ambassador Bloch grew up in San Francisco and earned a bachelor's degree in Communications and Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley in 1964, and a master's degree in Government and East Asia Regional Studies from Harvard University in 1967.