Staff Biographies

Lawrence T. Liu, Staff Director

Lawrence T. Liu joined the CECC staff in August 2006 and served as Deputy Staff Director under Senator Sherrod Brown from September 2011 to December 2012. He has previously served as Acting Staff Director (Cochairman). Before joining the CECC, Mr. Liu spent three years as a corporate attorney in New York at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, where he also worked for several months in the firm's Beijing office. Mr. Liu graduated from Columbia Law School. While in law school, Mr. Liu interned in the Beijing office of Jun He Law Offices and wrote a paper on China's consumer protections laws. Prior to law school, Mr. Liu spent one year in Taiwan researching elementary school English education as a Fulbright fellow. He also spent one year in Taiwan as a reporter for the Taiwan News covering politics. He holds a bachelor's degree in public policy from Brown University. Mr. Liu speaks and reads Mandarin Chinese.

Paul B. Protic, Deputy Staff Director

Judith F. Wright, Director of Administration

Judith F. Wright joined the CECC staff in February 2002, after five years working as an executive assistant on Capitol Hill. From 1997 through 2001, she was responsible for managing and coordinating appointments, staff assignments and travel schedules for Congresswoman Marge Roukema (R-NJ). Her duties also included managing official functions, planning meetings with visiting New Jersey delegations, and overseeing correspondence between Ms. Roukema and other government officials. Prior to that, she oversaw scheduling and staff assignments, and tracked activity on the House floor for Congresswoman Karen McCarthy (D-MO). Ms. Wright also served on the Legislative Resource Center Staff for the House of Representatives Office of the Clerk. While there, she assisted the Director with speech writing, edited and proofread official correspondence, and reviewed campaign financial reports and lobbying reports. She also researched and updated the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress, the Bibliography of the U.S. Congress, and the Guide to Research Collections. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Maryland-College Park.

Steven D. Marshall, Senior Advisor and Prisoner Database Program Director

Before joining the CECC staff in March 2002, Steven D. Marshall spent more than two decades traveling widely on the Chinese mainland and researching the human rights situation in China and the Tibetan areas of China. He has served as an expert consultant on China and Tibetan issues for Congressional members and their staff as well as State Department officers. His publications include In the Interest of the State: Hostile Elements III - Political Imprisonment in Tibet, 1987-2001 (2002); Suppressing Dissent: Hostile Elements II - Political Imprisonment in Tibet, 1987-2000 (2001); Rukhag 3: The Nuns of Drapchi Prison (2000); Tibet since 1950: Silence, Prison or Exile (2000); Hostile Elements: A Study of Political Imprisonment in Tibet, 1987-1998 (1999); and Tibet Outside the TAR: Control, Exploitation and Assimilation - Development with Chinese Characteristics, a 2,700 page CD-ROM with interactive text, images, and maps (1997). In addition, Mr. Marshall compiled, designed and maintained a database of Tibetan political prisoners that the State Department described as “the world's most comprehensive.” He also presented lectures about the Tibetan areas of China at the Foreign Service Institute for China Area Studies seminars in 2001-2011, and testified on Tibetan human rights before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2008 and before the House International Relations Committee in 1999.

Anna Brettell, Senior Advisor

Anna Brettell joined the CECC staff in January 2009. Previously she was program officer for East Asia with primary responsibility for China at the National Endowment for Democracy. Ms. Brettell has been a Research Associate at the Harrison Program on the Future Global Agenda, University of Maryland, and a visiting professor at Cornell University and the University of Vermont, teaching courses in Chinese and Asian politics, international environmental policy and law, and comparative politics. Her Ph.D. in Government and Politics is from the University of Maryland and her M.A. in international environmental policy is from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She has lived and worked in Greater China for more than nine years and speaks Mandarin Chinese. Her publications include articles and book chapters regarding the relationships among economic development, levels of pollution, and public participation; Chinese environmental groups; environmental justice and China's complaint and dispute resolution systems; and environmental cooperation in East Asia.

Abigail Story, Senior Research Associate and Manager of Annual Report Production

Abigail Story joined the CECC staff in January 2009. She received her B.A. in Chinese and Linguistics from the College of William and Mary and her M.A. with a concentration in Chinese Psycholinguistics from The Ohio State University. During undergraduate and graduate school, she completed language education and conducted linguistic research in China. Prior to joining the Commission, Ms. Story worked in the New York office of Human Rights in China (HRIC). She is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

Jesse Heatley, Senior Research Associate

Jesse Heatley joined the Congressional Executive Commission on China in March 2010 and covers criminal justice issues and the treatment of North Korean refugees in China. Prior to his work at the Commission, Mr. Heatley worked as a research assistant for the Justice Systems Workshop at Harvard Kennedy School‘s Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management. Mr. Heatley received his B.A. from Bucknell University, A.M. from Harvard University and M.P.P. from Harvard Kennedy School. He also studied at National Taiwan University School of Law in Taipei, Taiwan, and the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, China. Mr. Heatley is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

David Machinist, Research Associate

David Machinist joined the CECC staff in June 2012. Prior to joining the Commission, Mr. Machinist worked in the New York office of China Labor Watch (CLW). Mr. Machinist has strong interest in social advocacy and human rights work. He received his B.A. in East Asian Studies and Communications from McGill University. He has also studied at National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei, Taiwan, and Peking University in Beijing, China. Mr. Machinist speaks and reads Mandarin Chinese.

Amy Reger, Research Associate

Amy Reger joined the CECC staff in July 2012. She previously worked as a researcher at the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP). Ms. Reger has worked in the human rights and journalism fields, with a focus on China, for more than a decade. She is an alumnus of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies, and traveled extensively throughout China and Asia during studies in Nanjing, Beijing and Taiwan. She speaks and reads Mandarin Chinese.

Jen Salen, Research Associate

Jen Salen joined the CECC staff in July 2012. Before joining the Commission, she managed China technical assistance programs in the areas of public interest law, civil society legal advocacy, and women's rights for the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative and in rural women's political participation and civil society capacity building for the International Republican Institute. She also has worked on women's rights and legal development projects conducted in Laos and Vietnam. Earlier in her career, Ms. Salen was involved in educational initiatives to expand Chinese language education and East Asian studies at U.S. elementary and high schools, including developing curricula and leading teacher and student groups to China and Japan for short-term study tours. She received a bachelor's degree in history from Bryn Mawr College and a master's degree in East Asian Studies from Harvard University. She has studied Mandarin Chinese at Middlebury College and the Inter-University Program (now the International Chinese Language Program) at National Taiwan University, and researched the diversity of the ethnic Chinese community in Malaysia during a Fulbright fellowship.