When Alan Miller was a graduate student and aspiring young journalist at the East-West Center in the late 1970s, the highlight of his experience was his field study doing an internship at the Tokyo bureau of the Washington Post. “I got to shadow the Post's East Asian bureau chief, complete a project on the American press in Japan, and write two stories that were published in the paper. Heady stuff for a 23-year-old,” Miller told the several hundred alumni assembled in person and online for an awards luncheon on the first day of the 2022 EWC/EWCA International Conference in Honolulu. 

Miller is one of two recipients of this year’s East-West Center Distinguished Alumni Award along with leadership coach and mentor Gandolgor Purevjav from Mongolia. (Read more about this year’s alumni awardees.)  The award recognizes outstanding accomplishments, including significant contributions to the promotion of better relations and understanding among the peoples of Asia, the Pacific, and the United States; significant career achievement; and continuing support for the goals and objectives of the Center. 

Following his time at the Center, Miller went on to a three-decade, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism career. He founded the News Literacy Project – a groundbreaking national nonprofit that creates tools and programs for educators and the public to about how to determine what news and other information to trust – in 2008. “My time at the Center was one of the most consequential and enriching experiences of my life,” Miller said in a video address after a bout of covid prevented him for attending the event in person, as he had hoped. “Since embarking on my second career with the News Literacy Project, it’s been gratifying to make connections with my Center experience as well … In the end, it is the close friendships forged at the Center that have been the most meaningful.” 

Purevjav, a 2014 alumna of the Changing Faces Women’s Leadership program, was recognized for her work empowering Mongolians as the founder and executive director of the Ganabell Institute of Success. She is a well-respected woman leader, best-selling author, HR consultant, and mentor who has transformed her field in Mongolia.  

“It’s my honor to receive this prestigious award,” said Purevjav, who had journeyed to Honolulu for the event. “This award is not just for me, but for our team and our chapter,” Purejav said, referencing the EWCA Ulaanbaatar Chapter that she helped launch in 2019 with the US Embassy in Mongolia. She has continued to work with EWC on the Adaptive Leadership Program which has brought 110 Mongolians across 21 provinces into the EWC ‘ohana, or family, of alumni. 

“It is such an honor to be able to recognize our East-West Center sister from Mongolia and our brother from DC, that’s how we think of ourselves at the East-West Center ‘ohana.” EWC president Suzanne Vares-Lum said in closing remarks, noting that “investments in our emerging leaders who make a difference” is central to the East-West Center’s continuing mission to create better relations and understanding between the peoples of the United States, Asia, and the Pacific. 

The awards luncheon also honored: 

• Ramy Inocencio, Asia Pacific Leadership program alum and Asia Pacific Journalism fellow, who received the EWCA 21st Century Outstanding Service Award for his work as a journalist for CBS News including coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak from Wuhan, China. He had planned to attend the conference, but was called to cover the war in Ukraine.  
  “Through the lens of war that I'm seeing right now, I'll just say that it is even more important for us to all to stand together, to promote dialogue, to understand and to respect people and cultures,” Inocencio said in a video recording from Kyiv’s main square. “We need support for the East-West Center to be as strong as it can be ... as strong as we can be. We're all providing our own outstanding service, if you will, by spreading that message of respect for diversity everywhere we go.” 

• Professor Emerita of Okinawa Christian University, Keiko Yamazato, who received the EWC Association Outstanding Volunteer Award for her leadership of the EWC Okinawa alumni chapter and spearheading a fundraising campaign among the Okinawa alumni to establish the Center's EWCA Okinawa Chapter Endowment fund in 2013. 

• The EWCA Southern California Chapter with the EWCA Outstanding Chapter Award for their work in raising funds to support EWC participants and their dedication to documenting the stories of alumni and the impact of the Center on participants’ lives and careers. 

When Alan Miller was a graduate student and aspiring young journalist at the East-West Center in the late 1970s, the highlight of his experience was his field study doing an internship at the Tokyo bureau of the Washington Post. “I got to shadow the Post's East Asian bureau chief, complete a project on the American press in Japan, and write two stories that were published in the paper. Heady stuff for a 23-year-old,” Miller told the several hundred alumni assembled in person and online for an awards luncheon on the first day of the 2022 EWC/EWCA International Conference in Honolulu. 

Miller is one of two recipients of this year’s East-West Center Distinguished Alumni Award along with leadership coach and mentor Gandolgor Purevjav from Mongolia. (Read more about this year’s alumni awardees.)  The award recognizes outstanding accomplishments, including significant contributions to the promotion of better relations and understanding among the peoples of Asia, the Pacific, and the United States; significant career achievement; and continuing support for the goals and objectives of the Center. 

Following his time at the Center, Miller went on to a three-decade, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism career. He founded the News Literacy Project – a groundbreaking national nonprofit that creates tools and programs for educators and the public to about how to determine what news and other information to trust – in 2008. “My time at the Center was one of the most consequential and enriching experiences of my life,” Miller said in a video address after a bout of covid prevented him for attending the event in person, as he had hoped. “Since embarking on my second career with the News Literacy Project, it’s been gratifying to make connections with my Center experience as well … In the end, it is the close friendships forged at the Center that have been the most meaningful.” 

Purevjav, a 2014 alumna of the Changing Faces Women’s Leadership program, was recognized for her work empowering Mongolians as the founder and executive director of the Ganabell Institute of Success. She is a well-respected woman leader, best-selling author, HR consultant, and mentor who has transformed her field in Mongolia.  

“It’s my honor to receive this prestigious award,” said Purevjav, who had journeyed to Honolulu for the event. “This award is not just for me, but for our team and our chapter,” Purejav said, referencing the EWCA Ulaanbaatar Chapter that she helped launch in 2019 with the US Embassy in Mongolia. She has continued to work with EWC on the Adaptive Leadership Program which has brought 110 Mongolians across 21 provinces into the EWC ‘ohana, or family, of alumni. 

“It is such an honor to be able to recognize our East-West Center sister from Mongolia and our brother from DC, that’s how we think of ourselves at the East-West Center ‘ohana.” EWC president Suzanne Vares-Lum said in closing remarks, noting that “investments in our emerging leaders who make a difference” is central to the East-West Center’s continuing mission to create better relations and understanding between the peoples of the United States, Asia, and the Pacific. 

The awards luncheon also honored: 

• Ramy Inocencio, Asia Pacific Leadership program alum and Asia Pacific Journalism fellow, who received the EWCA 21st Century Outstanding Service Award for his work as a journalist for CBS News including coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak from Wuhan, China. He had planned to attend the conference, but was called to cover the war in Ukraine.  
  “Through the lens of war that I'm seeing right now, I'll just say that it is even more important for us to all to stand together, to promote dialogue, to understand and to respect people and cultures,” Inocencio said in a video recording from Kyiv’s main square. “We need support for the East-West Center to be as strong as it can be ... as strong as we can be. We're all providing our own outstanding service, if you will, by spreading that message of respect for diversity everywhere we go.” 

• Professor Emerita of Okinawa Christian University, Keiko Yamazato, who received the EWC Association Outstanding Volunteer Award for her leadership of the EWC Okinawa alumni chapter and spearheading a fundraising campaign among the Okinawa alumni to establish the Center's EWCA Okinawa Chapter Endowment fund in 2013. 

• The EWCA Southern California Chapter with the EWCA Outstanding Chapter Award for their work in raising funds to support EWC participants and their dedication to documenting the stories of alumni and the impact of the Center on participants’ lives and careers.