CSEAS Faculty News

Lisandro Claudio, Associate Professor of South & Southeast Asian Studies

Lisandro Claudio joined the faculty of the Department of South & Southeast Asian Studies in 2020. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne, and was on the faculty of De La Salle University in Manila prior to his move to Berkeley. He researches modern history and political change in Southeast Asia, specifically in the Philippines. His publications include Taming People's Power: The EDSA Revolutions and their Contradictions (Ateneo De Manila University Press, 2014) and Liberalism and the Postcolony: Thinking the State in 20th-Century Philippines (National University of Singapore Press, 2017), which won the Association of Asian Studies George McT. Kahin Prize in 2019 for distinguished work beyond a scholar’s first book. He was awarded tenure at UC Berkeley in 2022. Beginning in July 2023, he assumed the role of Chair of the Center for Southeast Asia Studies.

Penny Edwards, Professor of South & Southeast Asian Studies

Penny Edwards received the 2021 Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Late Career Faculty. The campus-wide award recognizes faculty for outstanding mentorship of graduate students at UC Berkeley. She was promoted to full professor in 2022. She is on sabbatical in 2022-23.

Daena Funahashi, Assistant Professor of Anthropology

Daena Funahashi joined the faculty of the Department of Anthropology in 2019. She received her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Cornell University. Before joining the Berkeley faculty, she was Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Aarhus University in Denmark. Her most recent project examines the multiple writings of the Thai constitution to explore the relationship between legality and legitimacy. Beyond Southeast Asia, she is the author of Untimely Sacrifices: Work and Death in Finland (Cornell University Press in 2023).

Nancy Lee Peluso, Professor of Environmental Science, Policy & Management

Prof. Peluso was Chair of the Center for Southeast Asia Studies from July 2020 to July 2023. Her most recent research project on labor migration and the effect of remittances on agriculture and forest landscapes in Indonesia was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Khatharya Um, Associate Professor of Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies

Prof. Khatharya Um was selected as the recipient of the prestigious Academic Prize for 2023 by the Fukuoka Prize Committee for her outstanding achievements in the field of Asian studies, contributing to the world's understanding of Asia.

Peter Zinoman, Professor of History

Prof. Zinoman is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Vietnamese Studies, which is published by UC Press. A UC Press blog post has highlighted the journal's editorial team.