Maggie Zhou Application for appointment to the International Committee

Name: Maggie Zhou (legal name Magdalena Hong Zhou Hoersch)

Address: Lachenweg 3, 4125 Riehen, Switzerland

Phone: +41 61 535 0508

E-mail: [email protected]

Committee: International Committee

Term (1 or 2 years): 2 years if possible (usually IC membership is for 2 years, but it's up to the state party to determine the appointment length.)

Committee Contact(s): Bahram Zandi PhD, [email protected]; Vivek Ananthan, [email protected]

Reason for Serving: I would like to be a liason between GPUS and GRP on issues with an international scope, and help to contribute my knowledge and perspective on such issues. I also currently reside in Switzerland, having moved here from MA in 2013.

Qualifications: Since about 2010 I have become more and more drawn to deepening my understanding of global issues, their geopolitical, historical, and financial underpinnings, the agenda and mechanisms of control by the global elites, and possible ways to advance the interests of the masses. I have been researching relentlessly on many aspects of these and other global issues for the past 7 years. I currently reside in Switzerland, having moved here from MA in 2013, so I also have a more international social environment. I have also met in person with some of the global Greens in Paris, during the 2015 Paris climate conference, while I assisted Dr. Jill Stein with her activities and interactions with global Green leaders there.

Short Biography:

Born and educated through university (Fudan University, Shanghai) in China, I went to graduate school in the biology program in Georgetown University briefly, then completed my Ph.D. in the genetics program in University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1997. I worked for Millennium Pharmaceuticals (later bought by Takeda) in Cambridge, MA as a computational biologist for 5 years.

After taking time off to raise a child, I became very concerned about the threat of climate change, did extensive reading into the scientific literature in climate science and related disciplines, and started my activism with the non-profit organization that was founded by Jill Stein and John Andrews, Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities. Later they introduced me to the GRP, and I became a statecom member. I soon realized that the obstacle to any meaningful action on climate change resides entirely in the political system, which only allowed false "climate solutions" to be even discussed. I became part of a small group of highly motivated grassroots activists based in the US and Canada, calling our group "Climate SOS". I went to the climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009 representing these two organizations, and participated in the people's mobilization and discussions space there. From there I became part of the international climate justice network called "Climate Justice Now!", and have been contributing my knowledge through that network.

Starting in 2010 I became more and more involved with the antiwar movement, and gave a number of presentations/workshops at antiwar conferences on topics of climate and war, in MA, New England area, and internationally via web link. I lead a Climate SOS initiative to bring a petition from many hundreds of organizations around the world to the Cancun climate conference (COP16) in 2010, asking delegates from all member states to bring the issue of war, militarism and imperialism into the climate negotiations, as the issues are inevitably linked. But the more I researched into these topics, the more I realized there're far deeper layers to be recognized, so I continued to dig deeper. This is why I feel I could contribute meaningfully to the International Committee.