Skye VanValkenburgh (吴思凯) manages all aspects of the Visiting Scholar Program at CCS. She earned her B.A. in Chinese from San Francisco State University and is an alumni of the Chinese Language Flagship Program. As part of the Flagship Program, Skye studied Chinese language and culture intensively at National Taiwan University, conducted several summer internships in Taiwan, and completed a yearlong intensive language capstone at Nanjing University, which included a six-month internship as the Program Assistant for the American Councils Chinese Language Flagship Nanjing Center. She...
Xiaojie Ma (马晓洁) manages the Center for Chinese Studies' programs, lectures and conferences and administrative matters. She holds a B.A. in English from University of International Business and Economics, and a Master's Degree in Pacific International Affairs from University of California, San Diego, with a career track of International Management. Prior to joining the CCS team, she served as the Program Manager from 2008-2012, and Assistant Director from 2013-2018 at the UCLA Confucius Institute, working on connecting the dots, filling the gaps and tapping into the tremendous resources...
Alma Lowell Dittmer, a professor and writer who worked at UC Berkeley for 40 years and specialized in Chinese politics, died on April 15 in Oakland. He was 82.
He was named after his father Alma, but throughout his life went by his middle name, Lowell. His parents Alma and Veda met when they themselves were both teachers at a junior high school in Utah. They would both spend much of their life teaching; Alma as a university professor of music; his wife as a K-12 teacher with specialties in Home Economics and Remedial Reading. Lowell was the eldest of their six children, and they...
Lowell Dittmer, professor of Chinese Politics and former Chair of the Center for Chinese Studies (1979-1983), died April 15th, 2024. He was a member of the Department of Political Science, UC Berkeley from 1978 until his retirement in 2022. He remained an active scholar and most recently published an edited volume, "China's Political Economy in the Xi Jinping Epoch." A memorial service is scheduled for Friday, April 26 at 1:00pm at Temple Sinai, 2808 Summit Street, Oakland 94609.