Kota Watanabe is a diplomat-turned-political scientist studying contested state building and civil war in contemporary Myanmar, currently based in New York City. He earned his PhD in Development Studies from SOAS University of London in February 2025.

Emiko Stock is a visual and historical anthropologist. Working with Chams (Cambodian Muslims) and Sayyids (descendants of the Prophet Muhammad), she traces passages between Sunnism and Shi’ism and Cambodia and Iran as a practice of history refracted in still and moving images. Her projects, embedded in experimental ethnography, grow from the theorization and practice of analog as well as digital photography and videography. She is currently based in Phnom Penh, developing two projects, a film and a book, each asking how we see history in affective and haptic manners.

Joshua Plotnik is a comparative psychologist and conservation behavior researcher who has studied elephant cognition and conservation in Thailand since 2007. Recently, Josh has been working with students and colleagues in Thailand and Myanmar to understand how research on animal behavior and cognition can be applied directly to the mitigation of human-wildlife conflict. 

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.

Kathryn Stam is a professor of anthropology at SUNY Polytechnic Institute. She serves as the coordinator of the online master’s program in information design and technology, and she teaches undergraduate anthropology. Stam’s specialties are cross-cultural communication, ethnography, Thai and Lao studies, and information technology. Her recent work is a collection and analysis of Northeast Thai memorial books and has been supported by a Fulbright grant and an ENITAS scholarship from the Institute of Thai Studies at Chulalongkorn University.