As part of the the AAPI Faculty Group at UC Santa Cruz, the Asian American Pacific Islander Faculty Initiative supports and advocates for AAPI faculty, students, and staff in their research and academic experiences, and will serve to increase cross-cultural understanding through events, educational programs, exhibitions, and other initiatives.
The goals of the Asian American Pacific Islander Faculty Initiative at UC Santa Cruz are to:
- raise awareness about the experiences, perspectives and contributions of Asian and Asian American students, staff and faculty;
- support, retain and advocate for AAPI on campus through grants and initiatives; and
- increase cross-cultural understanding through events, education, exhibitions and other programs.
We will achieve these goals through building campus/community partnerships, establishing stronger communication with the University administration, and helping to create needed resources and structures. The latter includes developing academic projects, for example, new courses focusing on Asian American histories, historical and cultural exhibitions and displays on campus, student and faculty research funding (grants, awards), and other programs to support students and retain faculty who advise and teach them.
Donate to the AAPI Faculty Initiative
If you are interested, please donate to the AAPI Faculty Initiative. Currently, we are fundraising for student support during the public health emergency, and for faculty research grants. (When you go to the linked giving page, you will find a pre-selected designation for the Asian American Pacific Islander Faculty Initiative Fund.) Thank you for your support!
Judy Yung Memorial Fund
In honor of the late Judy Yung, Emerita Professor of American Studies, author, and scholar of Chinese American history, UCSC has established the Judy Yung Memorial Fund, which shall be used to support interdisciplinary research and/or programming related to Asian American / Pacific Islander (AAPI) Studies at UC Santa Cruz. This fund will carry Yung’s legacy into the future by creating an open and inclusive forum for nurturing intellectual exchange across the disciplines. Read more.
T. F. Mou and Koo Family Fund
The AAPI Faculty Initiative gratefully acknowledges Dr. Linda Koo and her brother, Professor David Koo, for making a gift of rare materials from the archive of Chinese-language filmmaker T.F. Mou. The Koo family’s investment in Asian American/Pacific Islander Faculty Initiative will allow for UC Santa Cruz faculty and students to gain a greater understanding of this artist, whose work forged connections between Taiwan and mainland China. You can make a gift to support this or other AAPI Faculty Initiatives.
After linking to the donation page, please write in the notes section, “For the Koo Family Fund.”
AAPI Faculty Initiative Steering Committee
L.S. Kim
L.S. Kim is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the Department of Film and Digital Media. Her research, writing, and teaching specialties include: Television history and theory, race and representation, Asian American cultural production, feminist criticism, and social change in both mainstream Hollywood and alternative media. L.S. Kim graduated from Smith College with a major in Government and a minor in Film, and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Film and Television at UCLA. Professor Kim has taught at Northwestern University, Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara, and UCLA. She appears in the film, Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines (2012), and in Uploaded: The Asian American Movement (2012), a documentary about Asian American artists utilizing new media and the Internet. She currently serves on the Ms. Committee of Scholars, and has served on the American Film Institute Television Awards Jury. You can contact Professor Kim at lskim@ucsc.edu.
David Koo
David Koo is an Astronomer and Professor Emeritus at UCSC. After getting his A. B. in physics from Cornell University (1972) and doctorate (1981) in astronomy from Berkeley, he held research positions with Carnegie Institution in D. C. and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. Since 1988, he has been faculty at UCSC with University of California Observatories and Astronomy Department. His primary research has tackled how galaxies formed and then evolved over the last 10 billion years using the best observational data from the Hubble Space Telescope and large optical ground-based telescopes. Besides having published over 280 refereed journal papers, he has matriculated a dozen PhD’s and advised three dozen postdoctoral fellows before retiring in 2014. He still continues his astrophysics research and is involved with the Earth Futures Institute and STEM high school outreach programs. You can contact Professor Koo at dckoo@ucsc.edu.
Rui Li
Rui Li, Founder and President of Flex Education Inc., is a community leader who advocates for strong international academic relations and cross-cultural communication. Ms. Li graduated in International Relations and Foreign Affairs Management from Beijing University’s School of International Studies. She also obtained her CPA licensing and studied economics and business at UC Santa Cruz. Ms. Li advised international students at UCSC and taught pre-calculus and Mandarin Chinese at the Santa Cruz Waldorf School. Since 2009, she has advised and supported students from China, enabling them to succeed at the highest levels of American education. Most recently, Ms. Li founded Flex Kids Culture, a non-profit designed to promote academic and Chinese cultural programs and international connections. You can contact Ms. Li at rli1@ucsc.edu
Flora Lu
Flora Lu is the Pepper-Giberson Endowed Chair and Professor of Environmental Studies at UCSC and Provost of College Nine and John R. Lewis College. She earned her A.B. in Human Biology from Stanford University and her Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As an ecological anthropologist, Flora is interested in human/environment dynamics in tropical rainforests, the political economy of oil extraction, resource governance, household economics, and environmental justice. A faculty member at UCSC since 2008, Flora is the recipient of the Division of Social Sciences “Golden Apple” Distinguished Teaching Award (2010); Committee on Teaching’s Excellence in Teaching Award (2011); and Chancellor’s Diversity Award (2016, for the People of Color Sustainability Collective).
Nirvikar Singh
Nirvikar Singh is Distinguished Professor of Economics and Sarbjit Singh Aurora Chair of Sikh and Punjabi Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he also directs the Center for Analytical Finance. He has been a member of the Advisory Group to the Finance Minister of India on G-20 matters, and has served as Consultant to the Chief Economic Adviser, Ministry of Finance, Government of India. He currently serves on the Punjab State Advisory Council of the Government of Punjab. His current research topics include Sikh and Punjabi Studies, entrepreneurship, information technology and development, Indian Americans (including Sikhs), and the Indian economy. He has authored over 100 research papers and co-authored or co-edited six books.
Su-hua Wang
Su-hua Wang is Professor of Psychology, who studies human development in sociohistorical contexts to address pressing questions about learning of children from diverse backgrounds. For example, how is technology, as a cultural tool, affecting the ways children interact and collaborate with others? How is learning shaped by communication within and across different languages? Her research is funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Health, Spencer Foundation, and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. She is the founding Director of New Gen Learning (previously ALSiNG), an interdisciplinary collaborative that brings together faculty and students from Science, Arts, Engineering, and Social Sciences to identify cultural strengths for learning and ways to foster these strengths in school. Professor Wang received B.S. and M.S. from National Taiwan University and Ph.D. from the The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.