Ivanna Sang Een Yi is a scholar of Korean literature, culture, and performance. Her research focuses on the performative dimensions of living oral traditions as they interact with written literature and the environment from the late Chosŏn period to the present. Her current book project, Continuing Orality and the Environment in Korean Literature, examines the flourishing of Korean oral traditions such as p’ansori (epic dramatic storytelling) and sijo (lyric poetry) through transformative encounters with writing, the environment, and recording technology.

Rachel Beatty Riedl served as the Einaudi Center's director from 2019 to 2024.

Vice Provost Wendy Wolford is Robert A. and Ruth E. Polson Professor of Global Development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Eve Zucker’s research focuses on the aftermath of mass violence in Cambodia through the lenses of social memory, morality, the imagination, trust and everyday practices. She received her PhD in anthropology from the London School of Economics and her MA in cultural anthropology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Future teachers often travel in Orvil White’s science methods class. Some go back in time to their elementary school days and some head to Thailand, both studying forces of motion through roller coaster models and properties of water through optical illusions. But make no mistake: the fourth and fifth grade science lessons aren’t designed to be easy. They’re meant to make memories.

“Knowledge is memorable,” White says. “In order to make it memorable for students, there has to be a form of active engagement, or hands-on learning.”

Meredith Weiss's research is in the field of comparative politics, focusing on Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Thematically, she explores processes and patterns of political development and mobilization, including such dimensions as electoral patterns and processes, nationalism and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, Islamism, "new media," and coalition-building in both civil society and electoral politics.

Indonesia is a major focus of Andrew Weintraub's research, particularly the musical, narrative, and theatrical practices of Sundanese people in West Java. In his first book, Power Plays, he wrote about the art of Sundanese rod-puppet theater wayang golek and its adjustment to political pressures and economic opportunities in a rapidly modernizing society.

Vida Vanchan is a professor at SUNY-Buffalo State. She holds a doctorate in international economic and business geographies and a master’s degree in international trade from University at Buffalo.

She founded Southeast Asia (SEA) Week and has organized this annual event on Buffalo State campus since 2012. The SEA Week events feature lecture series, student presentations, panel discussions and performances involving Southeast Asian countries and beyond. In addition, she has worked on educational development and capacity building projects in Cambodia for many years.

Tooker, Deborah E., (Ph.D. 1988, Harvard University) is professor of anthropology, department of anthropology, criminology, and sociology at Le Moyne College. Her research focuses on the anthropology of space and place and identity concepts/politics in upland/lowland relationships in Thailand, especially among the Akha. She is currently working on historical changes in emotional practices and concepts of self among the Akha.