Leadership

Tom Mason, Ph.D.
Chairman & Founder

Dr. Tom Mason is a specialist in Chinese and Japanese language pedagogy, study abroad, and grassroots people-to-people exchange. In 2003 he founded the ALLEX Foundation (Alliance for Language Learning and Educational Exchange), dedicated to establishing and expanding East Asian language departments at U.S. universities and transforming lives through study abroad. At ALLEX, he helped build East Asian language programs at over a hundred universities, raising more than $70 million USD in both in-kind and cash disbursements to support the study of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. For eighteen years he served as executive director before transitioning to chairman in 2020. He is now executive director of the U.S.-Japan Bridging Foundation.

Dr. Mason has held leadership and teaching roles with Columbia University’s Kyoto Consortium for Japanese Studies, Cornell University, and several Japanese institutions. He studied at National Taiwan University on a Taiwanese government fellowship and was selected as a Mansfield Foundation Fellow in 2022 for the U.S.-Japan Network for the Future Program. He holds a non-academic, courtesy affiliation with the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University as Associate-in-Research.

In August 2024, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan announced that the Government of Japan would honor Dr. Mason with the Foreign Minister’s Commendation (外務大臣表彰) in recognition of his contributions to strengthening U.S.-Japan relations and promoting the Japanese language. A passionate mentor and frequent speaker on social entrepreneurship and international education, Dr. Mason holds a B.A. and M.A. in Asian Studies from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in East Asian Languages from The Ohio State University, where he studied with Mari Noda, the field’s preeminent scholar of Japanese language pedagogy.

Adrienne Henck, Ph.D.
Executive Vice-President &
Director of Programs

Dr. Adrienne Henck is a global education professional specializing in program development and implementation. She joined ALLEX in 2021 as a Senior Program Officer and led the resumption of the scholarship program following the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Henck began her career in international education nearly two decades ago as an Assistant Language Teacher in Gifu, Japan with the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) Program. She is an expert in global citizenship education, education policy, and approaches to improving school quality such as child friendly schools and whole-school assessments. Dr. Henck earned her M.A. in International Education and Development from New York University and her Ph.D. in International Education Theory and Policy from Penn State University.

Qi Wang, Ph.D.
Managing Director

Dr. Qi Wang is an expert in international higher education. She became Managing Director of ALLEX in 2020 after having served in several roles at ALLEX, including Director of Global Outreach and Research. Most recently she led the program’s expansion to Hong Kong, Macau, and Mainland China, areas that now comprise a significant portion of our annual applicant pool. She leads the organization’s administrative and candidate outreach operations. Dr. Wang has additional appointments as an adjunct associate professor at the School of Education (SOE), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) and a research fellow at the Center for International Higher Education, Boston College. She is the author of many books and articles on international higher education policy. Much of her research is on international student employment and world-class universities. Dr. Wang earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Education from the University of Bath in the United Kingdom.