Susan Jakes of ChinaFile.com to visit as Poynter Fellow

April 14, 2015

Susan Jakes, editor for ChinaFile.com and senior fellow for the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, will speak at Yale on Thursday, April 16 as a Poynter Fellow in Journalism.

Jakes will take part in a lunchtime discussion in Berkeley College, 125 High St., at noon. The event is free and open to the public.

Jakes received both a B.A. and M.A. in history from Yale. However, her doctoral studies, which focused on China’s environmental history and the global history of ecology, were interrupted when she joined ChinaFile.

From 2000 to 2007 she worked for China for Time magazine, first as a reporter and editor based in Hong Kong, then as the Beijing correspondent. She covered a wide range of topics for Time’s international and domestic editions, including student nationalism, human rights, the environment, public health, education, architecture, kung fu, North Korea’s nuclear weapons, and the making of Bhutan’s first feature film.

Jakes was awarded the Society of Publishers in Asia’s Young Journalist of the Year Award for her coverage of Chinese youth culture. In 2003, she broke the story of the Chinese government’s cover-up of the SARS epidemic in Beijing, for which she received a Henry Luce Public Service Award. She speaks and writes on China for a variety of print, radio, and television outlets. Jakes is also fluent in Mandarin and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Poynter Fellowship in Journalism was established by Nelson Poynter, who received his master’s degree in 1927 from Yale. The fellowship brings to campus journalists from a wide variety of media outlets who have made significant contributions to their field. Among recent Poynter fellows were Janet Mock, Seymour Hersh, and Daniel Zalewski.

YaleNews