SPAS Launches Careers in Asia-Pacific Affairs to Prepare Students for Diverse Career Opportunities

The School of Pacific and Asian Studies (SPAS) at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa is proud to announce the launch of the Careers in Asia-Pacific Affairs (CAPA) initiative, a collaborative effort across multiple centers and departments to prepare students for dynamic careers that require expertise in the Asia-Pacific region. Funded by Title VI through the U.S. Department of Education, the initiative is co-sponsored by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, the East Asia National Resource Center, the Center for Pacific Island Studies, the Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs, and the Department of Asian Studies. 

CAPA represents a significant step towards equipping students with the knowledge and skills needed to excel in Asia-Pacific related careers in government, education, business, and the nonprofit sector. Key elements of the CAPA initiative include the creation of a 3-credit course in the Department of Asian Studies that will enable students to explore the range of careers related to Asian Studies and develop the skills and materials that will position them to succeed in these fields. Another component is a speaker series, which aims to build bridges between students and future prospective employers. 

The UHM Center for Southeast Asian Studies kicked off the CAPA initiative this year with two speaker series events. The first speaker was Larry Chun, a Special Agent in the Diplomatic Security Service at the US Department of State. Chun talked about how growing up in Hawai’i has served him in a unique career field that encompasses international diplomacy and federal law enforcement. The second speaker was Mireille Zieseniss, Public Diplomacy Advisor at US Indo-Pacific Command and a career Foreign Service Officer in the US Department of State. She spoke about public diplomacy careers as an opportunity to tell America's story, connect people, and shape foreign policy.

Kristi Govella, director of the Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs, said, "This important collaborative initiative is designed to increase students' awareness of the diverse, exciting careers that they can pursue by studying Asia and the Pacific and to prepare them to enter the workforce successfully. We believe that University of Hawai‘i students have an important contribution to make across many different fields, and we aim to support them by offering world-class education and training, connecting them with employers, and helping them to build their professional networks."

The CAPA initiative complements the cross-center SPAS Indo-Pacific Affairs Initiative that is supported by Congressionally directed funding during 2022–2025 to bolster UHM’s strengths in Asia and the Pacific by creating the Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs, hiring a new faculty member in SPAS, piloting a paid internship program, inviting visiting experts, and expanding educational and professional development opportunities.

The next CAPA speaker series event will be a panel discussion on careers in think tanks, which are nonprofit, nongovernmental research and advocacy institutes. Details below:

Think Tank Careers: Policy, Communications, and Project Management

Wednesday, October 25, 3:00-4:30 pm HST

Hybrid Event: 258 Moore Hall and Online (Register on Zoom)

About the Speakers:

Elina Noor is a senior fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that provides independent analysis of major global problems and understanding of regional contexts. Prior to joining Carnegie, Noor worked with the Asia Society Policy Institute, the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, the Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia, and the Brookings Institution. Noor holds an LL.M from the London School of Economics, an M.A. in security studies from Georgetown University, and a B.A. in jurisprudence from Oxford University.

Keoni Williams is an information and publications officer at the Pacific Islands Development Program (PIDP), a program of the East-West Center dedicated to serving the nations and peoples of the Pacific through innovative capacity building, interchange among regional leaders, and policy-relevant research. Before joining PIDP, he worked at a Honolulu law firm, the US House of Representatives, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court, and Pacific Forum. Born and raised in Hawaiʻi, Williams is of Micronesian and Welsh descent. He holds a J.D. and a B.A. in communications and Korean from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

Jesslyn Cheong is senior program manager at Pacific Forum, a nonprofit foreign policy research institute based in Honolulu. She oversees projects and provides support for local and overseas conferences. Previously, she was a program manager at Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. She holds a B.S. in international politics from Georgetown University.

Moderator: Kristi Govella is the director of the Center for Indo-Pacific Affairs and an assistant professor of Asian Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Previously, Govella was the deputy director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank headquartered in Washington, DC with offices in Berlin, Brussels, Ankara, Belgrade, Bucharest, Paris, and Warsaw. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. in political science and Japanese from the University of Washington.