Contacts
Contacts
Alena Xinyue Zhang
Alena Zhang is the SEAP Graduate Student conference chair. She works on contemporary questions of land, race, and embodiment in the Asian/American diaspora through a lens of feminist science studies. She's stoked to host the conference this year with a crew of brilliant SEAP grads. Feel free to reach out to her at axz3@cornell.edu.
Saomai Nguyen
Saomai Phuong Nguyen (they/she) explores U.S. militarism/humanitarianism, Third World struggles and imaginations, and intergenerational refugee repertoires of memory work as competing but interconnected projects of knowledge production. They can be contacted at spn43@cornell.edu.
Vince Ha
Vince’s research focuses on two core themes: diasporic identities and queer archival methods. Currently, he is investigating the role of transnational media in shaping queer diasporic sociality, with a particular focus on homoerotic representation in Asian cinema. During the 2024-2025 academic year, he is a Fulbright visiting researcher at Cornell University and a TIFF Jeffrey and Sandra Lyons Canadian Film Fellow.
Kyaw Hsan Hlaing
Kyaw Hsan Hlaing, a PhD student in Government, studies Comparative Politics with a focus on regime changes, political violence, contentious politics, authoritarianism, democratic backsliding, political economy, and rebel Politics. Feel free to reach out to him at kh827@cornell.edu.
Sopheak Sam
Sopheak Sam is an MFA candidate in the Department of Art and is the design chair of the SEAP Graduate Student Conference. Sopheak is a multidisciplinary artist whose works unfold as a distillation of postwar intimacies—tracing history, affect, architecture, queerness, and refugeehood to destabilize time/space and renegotiate diasporic belonging. They are originally from Lowell, Massachusetts.
Eve Devillers
Eve Devillers researches the political economy of natural resource governance and energy systems in Indonesia. She is excited to engage with this year’s presenters and their ideas. She can be contacted at ed566@cornell.edu.
Evelyn Fettes
I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics, minoring in SouthEast Asian Linguistics and American Indian and Indigenous Studies and studying morphology, syntax, Austronesian languages, and Haudenosaunee languages. My dissertation research focuses on morphosyntactic variation of the noun phrase in Indonesian and Javanese isolects. Contact: eef55@cornell.edu
Marlie Lukach
Marlie Lukach is a member of the SEAP Graduate Student Committee. Her research focuses on the accessibility of underutilized crops in Southeast Asia and Africa from a plant breeding and genetics perspective. Coming from a life science background, she is excited to experience the theme of mobility from new perspectives at this year's conference.