2001-2002 Speakers' Biography

Meena Alexander is Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies at Hunter College and the Graduate Centre, City University of New York. Her poems and prose works have been widely anthologised and translated into several languages including Arabic, Malayalam, Hindi, Japanese, Italian, French, German and Swedish. Her works include the memoir Fault Lines (1993), selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of that year; a volume of poems and prose pieces on the immigrant life, The Shock of Arrival (1996); the volume of poems River and Bridge (1996); the novels Nampally Road, (1991) and Manhattan Music (1997). Her new book of poems is Illiterate Heart (Triquarterly Books/ Northwestern University Press, 2002) .She is currently working on a commission from the Royal Festival Hall, London to compose a poem on New York for Poetry International 2002.  [Lecture]

Moustafa Bayoumi is an associate professor of English at Brooklyn College, CUNY. He is co-editor of The Edward Said Reader (Vintage) and has published essays in a number of journals, including Transition, The Yale Journal of Criticism, and The Journal of Asian American Studies. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and from the Mellon Foundation, and has published widely on a variety of topics, including literature, politics, architecture, art, jazz, and Islam.  [Lecture]

Regie Cabico is a poet and spoken word performer who has appeared on HBO's Def Poetry Jam, PBS' "In The Life" & MTV's "Free Your Mind" Spoken Word Tour. His work appears in over 30 anthologies including The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, The World In Us: Gay & Lesbian Poets of the Next Wave & Slam. He is a pioneer in the Poetry Slam movement, having received 1st Place in the 1993 Nuyorican Poetry Slam and a First Place Team Prize for Mouth Almighty, Manhattan. Solo shows include Faith Hope & Regie & onomatopeia and a quarter life crisis in one act. He is a 1997 New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Recipient.  [Lecture]

Luis H. Francia is a poet, critic, and journalist who has lived in New York City since the 1970s. He has written several books, including The Arctic ARchipelago and Other Poems (1992); a collection of essays and reviews, Memories of Overdevelopment (1998); and Brown River, White Ocean: An Anthology of Twentieth Century Philippine Literature in English (1993). His latest work is the semiautobiographical Eye of the Fish: A Personal Archipelago (2001). He writes for the Village Voice and for the Sunday Inquirer Magazine in Manila. He is completing a new manuscript of poetry, The Museum of Absences.   [Lecture]

Ken Guest is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Baruch College. His forthcoming book, entitled New Gods in Chinatown: Faith and Survival in New York's Immigrant Community, will be published by New York University Press. He is also a Senior Research Consultant at the International Center for Migration Ethnicity and Citizenship of the New School University on their Religion and Immigrant Incorporation in New York project. [Lecture]

Kimiko Hahn is the author of seven collections of poetry, including her forthcoming The Artist's Daughter (W.W.Norton) and Earshot, which received an American Book Award. She has been awarded fellowships from the NEA, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and most recently, The Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. Hahn is a professor in the English Dept at Queens College/ CUNY.    [Lecture]

Tarry Hum is an assistant professor in the Department of Urban Studies at Queens College, City University of New York. She has a PhD in Urban Planning from UCLA's School of Public Policy and Social Research, and a Masters in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is currently working on a Ford Foundation funded research project on multi-ethnic Asian-Latino neighborhoods titled, "'Global' Neighborhoods in New York City: Locating Boundaries and Common Interests." Her publications include "A Protected Niche?: Immigrant Ethnic Economies and Labor Market Segmentation," in Prismatic Metropolis: Inequality in Los Angeles, eds., Lawrence D. Bobo, Melvin L. Oliver, James H. Johnson, Jr., and Abel Valenzuela Jr., Russell Sage Foundation 2000. [Lecture]

Linxiang Jin, Professor of education at Eastern China Normal University (Shanghai), is a reputed scholar of modern Chinese education, author and editor of several books on the topic. He was formerly the Dean of School of Education, and visiting Professor of Nagoya University (Japan) and Leiden University (Netherlands). [Lecture]

Hiroko Karan received the Bachelor of Pharmacy from Hoshi College of Pharmacy in Tokyo and graduated with honors as valedictorian. She received the Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Brown University.  Professor of Chemistry, she has served as Chairperson of the Department of Physical and Computer Sciences, Assistant Dean of the School of Science, Health and Technology at Medgar Evers College and presently as Dean of the School.

For the past fifteen years,  she has been an advocate for women and minorities in science and has mentored many students during her tenure at Medgar Evers College. Many of whom have pursued careers in Science, Medicine and other Health Related Professions and actively serve the community.  [Lecture]

James Lap is Associate Director of the Evening & Summer Sessions Office and Adjunct Faculty in Computer Systems Technology Department at NYC Technical College. He is also Adjunct Faculty in the Foreign Language Department at New York University and an Examiner of Vietnamese as a Foreign Language for Lehman, Queens and Hunter Colleges. He earned his Bachelor of Arts at New York University and his Master of Science at Columbia University. Mr. Lap has been interviewed by The Washington Post, NBC TV Channel 4, China TV, and Asian American TV Channel 25 on topics such as normalizing diplomatic relations between U.S. and Vietnam. He has led College-sponsored faculty and student trips to visit universities in Vietnam, and just recently returned from a faculty tour of universities in Ghana and Togo in West Africa.

Yi-Chun Tricia Lin,  A fifteenth-generation daughter of Taiwan, Yi-Chun Tricia Lin teaches writing and literature at Borough of Manhattan Community College and holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature, from SUNY, Stony Brook.  Her research has been largely on cross-cultural American literature, and she is currently collaborating a few projects, including co-editing the thirtieth-anniversary special issue of WOMEN'S STUDIES QUARTERLY, entitled THEN AND NOW."  [Lecture]

Keming Liu, is the daughter of a former KMT general born in mainland China and came to the U.S. to pursue her advanced studies, teaches writing, linguistics, and ESL at Medgar Evers College and holds an Ed.D. in Applied Linguistics from Teachers' College, Columbia University and M.A. in TESOL and Computer Technology.  A foreign correspondent for Trends, a fashion magazine published in mainland China with a circulation of 25,000, Dr. Liu holds interest in research on language and cognition and Chinese literati in the Diaspora.  As a Sasakawa fellow, Dr. Liu desires to explore Asian art, culture, and literature and hopes to publish books and articles in the varied fields of disciplines. [Lecture]

Rohit Parikh was born in India but all his degrees are from Harvard. He is three times winner in the Putnam Mathematical Competition. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Brooklyn College and also affiliated with the doctoral programs in Philosophy, Mathematics and Computer Science at the CUNY Graduate center. He has published in journals in various fields including the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, Journal of Symbolic Logic, Philosophical Forum, Journal of Economic Theory and the Journal of the Asscociation for Computing Machinery. He is former Chief editor of International Journal for Foundations of Computer Science and is the current managing editor of the Journal of Philosophical Logic. Apart from CUNY he has taught at Stanford University, Boston University, Panjab University, New York University, Bristol University and SUNY at Buffalo. His current primary interest is in the interaction between the Logic of Knowledge and Game Theory with a view to understanding societal structures.  [Lecture]

Kwi Park-Kim, Associate Professor of Business and Information Systems at Bronx Community College, is the director of instructional technology laboratory, and the coordinator of faculty development & training in technology. She earned her doctoral degree in Communications, Computing and Instructional Technology from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1988. A nationally recognized expert in educational multimedia theory, web design and development, Dr. Park-Kim has published extensively, and made numerous presentations to faculty across the country on distance learning and other technology related issues in education. A member of the CUNY Online Faculty, she is also a member of the CUNY Task Force for Educational Technology. Dr. Park-Kim has received a wide range of national honors, including, most recently, the nomination for U.S. Professor of the Year, a program established by the Carnegie Foundation.  [Lecture]

Thomas Tam, Executive Director of Asian American / Asian Research Institute, and Chairman of Asian American Higher Education Council, taught health administration and research at Columbia University, Lehman College, and St. Joseph University.  In addition, he is an avid movie maker.  A recent convert to Buddhism, he has completed a documentary video, "En Route to Lhasa", and has given a talk on "The Diamond Sutra" at the CUNY Graduate Center last year.