Wednesday, February 7, 2024
3:00–4:30 pm HST | 8:00–9:30 pm EST
Hybrid Event: 258 Moore Hall and Online

On February 7, 2024, join us for a conversation with Dr. James Perez Viernes and Ulamila Cagivanua as part of the Careers in Asia-Pacific Affairs Speaker Series.

Dr. James Perez Viernes is Deputy Director of the Pacific Islands Development Program (PIDP). He provides strategic leadership and advice to advance the mandates of the program’s three-fold identity as a Council of Regional Organisations of the Pacific (CROP) agency, Secretariat of the Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders (PICL), and an East-West Center program. Dr. Viernes serves as the primary liaison between PIDP and its fellow CROP agencies, member governments of PICL, and other regional partners and stakeholders. His current efforts are focused on working with partners across the Pacific to support regionalism, leadership, climate action, capacity building, and gender equality and social inclusion.

Ulamila Monica Cagivanua is an iTaukei (Indigenous Fijian) woman born and raised in Fiji with village ties to Ekita, Yawe in Kadavu and maternal links to Nasilai in Rewa. Ulamila earned her BA degree in Sociology and Social Work and a postgraduate diploma at the University of the South Pacific, Laucala Campus. She attained her MA in Pacific Islands Studies and Advanced Graduate Certificate in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in spring 2023 and is currently under academic training at the Pacific Islands Development Program.

The Careers in Asia-Pacific Affairs Speaker Series is cosponsored by the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, East Asia National Resource Center, Center for Pacific Island Studies, and Department of Asian Studies.