Lined up to greet them were 23 professors from Columbia, Princeton, Rutgers and the University of Pennsylvania - all Asian specialists in economics, history and art history.

Jon Woronoff - American writer and East Asian specialist.

Carl W. Ford Jr. (born 1943), is an American political scientist, consultant, defense administrator, and Asian specialist originally from Hot Springs, Arkansas.

There are only a handful of scholars of Pakistan in the United States; most South Asian specialists here focus on the country's considerably larger neighbor, India.

There is no question that Ms. Desai's curatorial decisions will be closely watched by Asian and contemporary specialists alike.

The official, Karen Brooks, is the National Security Council's senior Asian specialist; she also has a deep personal and professional relationship with President Megawati.

The team drew on the expertise of South Asian specialists in social sciences, health and engineering.

"Power has crossed a psychological threshold," said Vitaly Ponomaryov, Central Asian specialist at Memorial, a respected Russian human rights group.

Her late husband, Kenneth T. Young, was an Asian specialist with the State Department and United States Ambassador to Thailand from 1961 to 1963.

As a young Foreign Service officer and Asian specialist in the mid-1960's, Mr. Roy was groomed to be America's first diplomat in Mongolia.