A fruitful bridge between two countries

Their first meeting left each with a favorable impression of the other. Sun thought his name sounded familiar and then realized she had cited one of his articles in her thesis. In the end, Sun chose Columbia and while Leebron did not succeed in recruiting Sun to NYU, he did succeed in dating her and making her his wife in 1990.

Sun was working as a lawyer in New York when in 2004 her husband, who was by then dean of Columbia Law School, was offered the job of president of Rice University in Houston.

"David asked me if he should take the position, and I said joyfully, 'It's time to have an adventure!'"

Now 10 years later, Sun has made herself thoroughly at home in Houston and become a prominent member of the community. One of her many functions at Rice is to "give consultation to faculty members who have an interest in China".

In November 2013, Rice was a co-host of the US-China Presidents Roundtable forum in Chicago. In preparation, Sun and Leebron visited Beijing in October and were received by Vice-Premier Liu Yandong.

"Vice-Premier Liu was joking that David and I are the perfect example of a Sino-US relationship. David joked that the US makes too many compromises and I said if the US did what China says, like David did, there would be no problems at all," Sun recalls with a laugh.

Sun's role as a bridge has produced results.

"When we came here in 2004, there was not a single student from China in the undergraduate population at Rice," she says. "Last fall, of the 930 incoming freshmen, 88 were from China on student visas, not counting students from Hong Kong."

In 2010, the Greater Houston Partnership named Sun and Leebron International Executives of the Year for their efforts to promote Houston and Rice University internationally.

"I am not practicing as much law as I used to," she says. "But what I do now impacts more people, especially the work in the community."

Her engagement on that front has earned her numerous awards, including the Asian American Leadership Award from the Asia Society Texas Center, Woman on the Move by Texas Executive Women and one of the 50 Most Influential Women by Houston Women Magazine.

Sun considers herself a very driven and determined person, and she summarizes the secret to her success as the three Ps: passion, preparation and perseverance.