Academic Director

Kalmanovitz Hall 246

Genevieve Leung is the academic director of the Asian Pacific Studies MA program and director of the Asian Pacific American Studies minor. She has a BA in linguistics from UC Berkeley and dual MA degrees in linguistics (TESOL) and education (Language and Literacy) from UC Davis. She received her PhD in Educational Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania. She has taught high school English in Japan, as well as English writing, effective communication, and reading and vocabulary courses at...

Education:
  • University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D. in Educational Linguistics
  • UC Davis, MA in Education
  • UC Davis, MA in Linguistics
  • UC Berkeley, BA in Linguistics

Administrative Director

Kalmanovitz 241B

Brian Komei Dempster is a professor of rhetoric and language and a faculty member in Asian Pacific American Studies at the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also serves as Director of Administration for the Master of Arts in Asia Pacific Studies. He has been at USF since 2001 and received the Distinguished Teaching Award (along with Ronald Sundstrom) in 2010 and the Dean's Scholar Award for 2022-2023.

At the university, he has taught various courses in the Rhetoric and Language...

Full-Time Faculty

Kalmanovitz Hall 180-A

Melissa S. Dale has served as Executive Director of the Center for Asia Pacific Studies since August 2012.

Prior to joining the faculty and staff at USF, she served as Associate Director of International Relations at the University of California, Berkeley (Nov. 2011 – Aug. 2012) where she worked in the areas of international relations and development for the entire campus with a particular focus on prospect development and stewardship for leadership and major gifts from the Asia-Pacific...

Education:
  • PhD, East Asian History (China), Georgetown University
  • MA, Asian Languages (Chinese), Stanford
  • BA, Oriental Languages (Chinese), UC Berkeley
Kalmanovitz Hall 145

David Kim is a professor of philosophy and an affiliate of the programs in Asian Studies, Asian American Studies, and Critical Diversity Studies. He has served in a variety of professional organizations, including chairing the American Philosophical Association Committee on Asian and Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies and co-founding the North American Korean Philosophy Association. 

David's work explores how our understanding of U.S. democracy is deepened through consideration of...

Education:
  • Syracuse University, PhD in Philosophy
  • Oberlin College, BA in Philosophy

Wei Yang Menkus received her PhD in East Asian Languages and Literature from Yale University. She teaches and researches broadly in Chinese cinema in a global context, with special interests in film genre, spatiality, transnational practice, and the intersection between China and Hollywood. She is currently completing a book manuscript on film space in contemporary Chinese cinema.

Her teaching interests include Chinese cinemas, East Asian genre films, gender and visual culture, city...

Education:
  • PhD, East Asian Languages and Literature, Yale University

Part-Time Faculty

Cowell Hall G03

Edith R. Borbon was born and raised in Manila, the Philippines. At seventeen, she immigrated with her family to California. She earned a BA in Linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley and an MS in Education, with a specialization in Intercultural Communication, from the University of Pennsylvania.

Professor Borbon has traveled widely and has taught English and writing for over 15 years. She is an accomplished editor and technical writer who has worked on many projects...

Education:
  • BA in Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley
  • MS in Education, with a specialization in Intercultural Communication, University of Pennsylvania
Kalmanovitz Hall 333

Wenchi Chang has an MA in Chinese and a BA in Chinese Literature. She also holds two Certificates of Training Program for teachers of Chinese as a foreign language. Professor Chang has taught at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, Monterey Institute of International Studies, UC Davis and National Taiwan Normal University. She teaches elementary to advanced Chinese language and Chinese literature.

Jaime Chua is a Senior Director, Public Sector Development, at The Asia Foundation. His role includes designing and evaluating economic development and governance reform programs in East Asia and South Asia. His recent research and field work relate to the microeconomic foundations of regulatory reform in Indonesia; the local political dynamics of community-based development in conflict areas in the Philippines; and local governance reform in Cambodia. He received his Doctorate (2010) from Case...

Education:
  • PhD, Management and Economics, Case Western Reserve University

Joaquin Jay Gonzalez III teaches international politics, Asian and Asian American social justice, migration, soft power, and public policy.

Dr. Gonzalez is the author of Filipino American Faith in Action: Immigration, Religion, and Civic Engagement (New York University Press) and co-author of Religion at the Corner of Bliss and Nirvana: Politics, Identity, Faith in New Migrant Communities (Duke University Press).

Stanley Kwong brings to USF over 30 years of international management, marketing and teaching experience in the US, China, India, and Central Europe. Professor Kwong is recognized as a leading expert on marketing strategy, branding, and investments policies and is frequently interviewed on branding in China and Chinese investments in the U.S. by top media, such as the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, SingTao News, and Chinese World Journal. He is a highly desired guest speaker at industry...

Education:
  • MBA, Management Science, University of Southern California at Los Angeles
  • MS, Education Administration, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
  • BA, Economics and Asian Studies, State University of...
Expertise:
  • International Marketing
  • US China Trade policies
  • Managing multinational corporations

Andrea Lingenfelter is a poet, scholar of Chinese literature, and a widely published translator of contemporary Chinese-language fiction (Farewell My Concubine,Candy) and poetry by authors from Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Her translations have appeared in Manoa, Push Open the Window, Chinese Literature Today, Pathlight, Chicago Review, Frontier, Taiwan, Time Asia, and Foreign Policy, to name a few, and she composed the subtitles for Chen Kaige’s film, Temptress Moon. Her translation of...

Education:
  • PhD, East Asian Languages and Literature, University of Washington
  • MA, East Asian Studies, Yale
  • BA, Chinese Studies, UC San Diego

Mei-Chen Michelle Pan received her PhD in Comparative Literature from University of Michigan. With an interdisciplinary background, she is interested in theories and cultural productions/practices that cross national and language boundaries. She has written about trans-colonial Taiwan, female writers in modern Chinese and Japanese literatures, museum space/narratives and identity. 

She is also a translator and a full-time staff at USF.

Education:
  • University of Michigan, PhD in Comparative Literature
  • University of Amsterdam, MA in Cultural Studies
  • National Chengchi University, MA in Communications
  • National Taiwan University, BA in Foreign...
Kalmanovitz Hall 202

Cynthia Schultes has taught at Trinity College in Washington, D.C., and Notre Dame Seishin University in Okayama, Japan. At USF, she teaches courses in rhetoric and language as well as historiography.

Education:
  • PhD, History, The George Washington University

Jonathan Tang is an adjunct instructor for the MA in Asia Pacific Studies Program, where he taught from 2014-2018, and has now returned to in 2022. After graduating with an AB in Social Studies from Harvard College in 2004, he received an MA in Regional Studies: East Asia from Columbia University, studied Mandarin Chinese for two years, and worked at a Beijing-based business school for two more before starting his doctoral studies on Twentieth-Century Chinese History at University of California...

Education:
  • UC Berkeley, PhD in History, 2019
  • Columbia University, MA in Regional Studies: East Asia, 2006
  • Harvard College, AB in Social Studies, 2004

Yachi Teng received her EdD in Second Language Acquisition from the University of San Francisco in 2009 and her MA in Foreign Language Teaching from the University of Pennsylvania in 2005. She obtained her Mandarin Teaching Certificate from Taiwan, and her Foreign Language Teaching Certificate from Pennsylvania.

Her teaching and research interests include Mandarin teaching at all levels, second language acquisition, online/distance language learning, and multimedia language learning.

Education:
  • University of San Francisco, Doctor of Education, 2009
  • University of Pennsylvania, Master of Science in Education, 2005
  • National Tainan Teachers College, Bachelor of Arts in Languages and...

Faculty Emeritus

John Nelson is Professor of East Asian religions in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of San Francisco. He is the author of Experimental Buddhism: Innovation and Activism in Contemporary Japan (2013, University of Hawaii; co-winner of the 2014 Numata Prize for 'outstanding book in Buddhist Studies'), two books on Shinto in contemporary Japan (A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine [1996], and Enduring Identities: the Guise of Shinto in Contemporary Japan [2000]...

Education:
  • UC Berkeley, PhD in Anthropology, 1993
  • CSU Chico, MA in Creative Writing, 1983