WEAI Bridges Communities, Bolsters Commitment to SE Asia at Bangkok Conference
A day of talks and panels helped build Weatherhead's ties with partner institutions in Thailand and Singapore.
In Bangkok on February 20, the Weatherhead East Asian Institute reconnected with local alumni and simultaneously made some new friends at "Columbia to Thailand and Southeast Asia: Bridging Communities and Building Legacies," a one-day conference at the Piano Museum (140 Wireless) that highlighted the Institute's longstanding commitment to Southeast Asian Studies through a series of talks and panel discussions.
Presented in partnership with Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University and the National University of Singapore, the conference was made possible by the involvement of Nunthinee Tanner, Managing Director of LBG Limited and co-founder of the Thai Polo and Equestrian Club, and Chatchai Piyasombatkul, President of the Columbia Alumni Association of Bangkok.
WEAI Director Lien-Hang T. Nguyen delivered the keynote address, in which she discussed Thailand's place in Columbia's global footprint and underscored the importance of Southeast Asian Studies and the Masters in Regional Studies East Asia (MARSEA) to Weatherhead's academic mission.
Later speakers included Neungreudee Lahapon, Associate Professor in the Department of Italian at Chulalongkorn University and a specialist on the digitization of archival documents, and Natalie Pang, University Librarian at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Libraries. A panel discussion on "The Life of a Book – Preserving Knowledge for Future Generations" brought together Weatherhead's Artist in Residence, filmmaker Tony Bui; Jim Cheng, Director of Columbia's C.V. Starr East Asian Library; and Daryl Yeap, a Penang-based historian of the Straits Chinese.
