Profiles in "Diaspora Studies" Expertise Area

  • Cho's research fields range from Korean and Chinese literature and culture; East Asian comparative literature; women and gender studies; performance literature; and oral storytelling and folk literature.
  • Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez is a Chicana scholar whose research focuses on place studies, rural communities, and the legacies of colonialism in Chicanx and Indigenous literature and culture.
  • Kassaw Merie, PhD, MSW is an Assistant Teaching Professor at Arizona State University School of Social Work since December 2022.
  • Christiane Fontinha de Alcantara's scholarly interests center on how cultural artifacts reflect systems of inequality and injustice, while also providing models for how to fight inequalities and transform our communities.
  • Shamara Wyllie Alhassan's work on Black women’s radical epistemologies focuses on the ways Rastafari women use livity to create communities of social justice and combat anti-black gendered racism.
  • Oloruntobi's research focuses on the narrative and perceptual shifts informed by the mainstreaming of African media products, specifically Afrobeats, and their implications for global Black relationalities.
  • Dan Lesko is a dual credit high school English instructor, English department chair, former English university lecturer, and advocate for utilizing technological advancements to improve education.