2020-2021 Faculty Recognition
Congratulations to our amazing faculty on their awards, publications, and accomplishments this past year. The teaching and research of Asian Studies faculty covers all regions Asia and spans diverse academic disciplines. These are just a few examples of the distinctions achieved by our faculty this past year.
Mira (Mimi) Locher, Chair, School of Architecture and Associate Professor, School of Architecture
Professor Mimi Locher received the 2021 ARCC (Architectural Research Centers Consortium)
Mid-Career Research Impact Award. The ARCC Mid-Career Research Impact Award acknowledges the success of established
scholars in architectural and environmental design research. The award is intended
to recognize faculty with outstanding performance and substantive impact in the field
who demonstrate excellence through original contributions, rigorous methods, innovative
outcomes, successful dissemination, significance and distinction. Professor Locher
has also published her fourth book, Zen Garden Design, in August 2020.
Paisley Rekdal, Distinguished Professor, Department of English
Professor Paisley Rekdal, Utah Poet Laureate, has published a digital poem/website about the transcontinental railroad, Chinese labor and the Chinese Exclusion Act called“West: A Translation,”. Professor Rekdal has also published a book,Appropriate: A Provocation, which is a timely, nuanced work discussing the thorny debate around cultural appropriation and the literary imagination. To learn more about Professor Rekdal's work, visit her websitehere.
Akiko Kamimura, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Adjunct Associate Professor, Health-Kinesiology, and Adjunct Associate Professor, Family And Preventive Medicine
Akiko Kamimura is the winner of the College of Social and Behavioral Science's. Excellence in Mentoring Award for 2021! The award recognizes faculty who have a passion for mentoring individuals in their professional training and life and are effective in assisting individuals toward meeting their goals. Professor Kamimura has been a model in her involvement of undergraduate and graduate students in her research and publications.
David Roh, Ph.D., Director, Digital Matters and Associate Professor, Department of English
Professor David Roh's book, Minor Transpacific, will be released in July. Minor Transpacific bridges the fields of Asian studies and Asian American studies to unveil new connections between Zainichi and Korean American literatures. Working in Japanese and English, David S. Roh builds a theoretical framework for articulating those moments of contact between minority literatures in a third national space and proposes a new way of conceptualizing Asian American literature.
Lien Fan Shen, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Film and Media Arts
Professor Lien Fan Shen’s comic, I will be your Paradise, is digitalized and re-serialized through a Chinese online comic platform Creative Comic Collection. It is serialized on a weekly basis, and it is promoted as “the first yuri manga (girl’s love comic) in Taiwan’s comic history.”