Loni Ding

In 2011, the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) in association with the Asian American Journalists Association established the Loni Ding Award In Social Issue Documentary award "in memory of Loni Ding’s spirit and vision for creating media about the Asian American experience."

She died on February 20, 2010, in Oakland, California, following a stroke.

She produced many films that documented early Asian immigrant stories including Nisei Soldier in 1984 and Ancestors in the Americas in 1997--she was one of the first directors to do so.

She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1982, an American Film Institute Directors Fellowship in 1983, and a Rockefeller Foundation Film/Video Fellowship in 1994.

Between 1980 and 2009, she taught film and media analysis in the Asian American Studies Program at the Ethnic Studies Department of the University of California, Berkeley. She also taught as a visiting faculty member at Cornell University in 1991, New School for Social Research in New York City in 1999, and Mills College. She was also Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1998.

Ding studied at the University of California, Berkeley, receiving a master's degree in sociology. She taught as a lecturer in the university's sociology department between 1958 and 1967.

Isadora Quanehia Ding Welsh (June 8, 1931 – February 20, 2010), known professionally as Loni Ding, was an documentary film maker, director, television series producer, activist, and university educator. She is known for her work exploring the experiences of Asian Americans. Notably, two of her films played a critical role in the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which granted reparations to Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II.