UMASS AMHERST GLOBAL | Managing Director of UMass Amherst

Alex Phillips is the Managing Director of UMass Amherst Global, which is dedicated to sharing the UMass experience worldwide. He holds an MFA and a BA from UMass Amherst, where he has served as an assistant provost, senior lecturer, and director of assessment and curriculum development at the Commonwealth Honors College. He is a certified site visitor for the National Collegiate Honors Society, and has years of experience in higher education administration. He has given papers on topics such as the future of the liberal arts and “assessment as storytelling.” His current academic interests include the history of American higher education and the globalization of knowledge. He has also published widely in his academic field of poetry, including in Poetry magazine, and American Life in Poetry.

Dr. Yang Li got his Bachelor's Degree from the Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University. After working in China for about two years, he went to the US to study artificial neural networks while pursuing his Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts. Dr. Li earned his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the Human-Machine Interactive Lab at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, focusing on artificial intelligence and natural language understanding. Dr. Li has 20 years of research and product development experience in the US, while establishing a wide range of contacts in both the technology and the business circles. Dr. Li has worked with Chinese companies on many design and planning work, such as robot theme parks, smart hotels, creative agricultural industry parks. Dr. Li also has a wealth of experience in software development. He was the director of software development at Kencast Inc, a company digitally delivering movies to the theatres in the U.S. Dr. Li has also led a pioneering team in the United States to engage in entrepreneurial activities in mobile networking. Dr. Li is currently the founder and CEO of Shanghai AgentTech Company, a startup working towards general purpose artificial intelligence. The company is based on Dr. Li's unique framework of world-wide leading artificial intelligence theories, such as the "intelligent machine model" for describing the problems facing AI, using a "probabilistically relational logic" to describe common knowledge, establishing a mathematical model for the process of thinking. Dr. Li's company is currently focusing on the development of conversation technology based on intelligent agent. Dr. Li is also working with several Chinese local governments to push for the establishment of the "International Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics". This institute will be focusing on cooperation between Chinese researchers and researchers from top international research institutes, and will be a super incubator for highly advanced technology companies.

Founder of MrS.ai, a Conversational AI company providing AI consulting & product solution to corporations. Focusing on the combination of deeptech innovation, liberal art and business value, Mingke helps industrial giants transform using AI strategies. As a Serial Entrepreneur, Mingke founded, raised and sold an AI concierge company. As a tech-writer, he is an opinion leader in the AI VC & Start-up community. He has a master’s degree from Bristol University.

Christy Ma is the Regional Director of UMass Amherst Global, Shorelight Education in Asia Pacific Region. Christy has over 10 years’ experience in training and higher education industry in Greater China. Prior to UMass, she has worked at University of Liverpool, Laureate Education, New Oriental School and EF Education. Christy is always passionate in the mission of changing people’s lives through technology and education.