Associate Dean and Associate Professor,
Ethnic Studies
She/Her/Hers
Khatharya Um is Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Social Sciences Division and Associate Professor in the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of California, Berkeley. She is also a founding faculty of the Asian American Research Center at Berkeley, and core faculty of Global Studies, the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, the Institute for International Studies, and The Institute for European Studies at Berkeley.
She received her PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley where she was also the Chancellor’s Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow. An internationally acclaimed scholar, her scholarship center on Southeast Asia and Southeast Asian American studies, migration and critical refugee studies, and social justice. She has published extensively on Southeast Asia and Southeast Asian diaspora, including, Departures, From the Land of Shadows, Globalization and Civil Society in East Asian Space, and Southeast Asian Migration.
Her work on Southeast Asian American educational and health disparities has informed policies and programs. Her pioneering scholarship on Cambodian refugee communities, in particular, has paved the way for Cambodian diaspora studies in the US and beyond.
She has founded and served on the board of numerous refugee-led and refugee-serving organizations and is a recipient of the prestigious Fukuoka Academic Laureate Prize and the Berkeley Chancellor’s Award for Advancing Institutional Excellence and Equity as well as numerous recognitions for her community engagement and leadership.
Email: umk@berkeley.edu
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