Dr. Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde is Associate Professor of Asian American Studies and Founding Director of the New Viet Nam Studies Initiative at the University of California, Davis. She was a Fulbright, Rockefeller, and Luce scholar. She authored Transnationalizing Viet Nam: Community, Culture, and Politics in the Diaspora. Prof. Valverde founded the movement ‘Fight the Tower’ with women of color and in the academy and co-edited the anthology, Fight the Tower: Asian American Women Scholars’ Resistance and Renewal in the Academy. Professor Valverde is working on curating an exhibit on development in contemporary Viet Nam through the lens of Viet Nam’s national dress, the ao dai. She continues for community building projects for Amerasians and have started two organizations to advance Amerasian needs in the US and Viet Nam. She is also working on her third manuscript, “National Aesthetics,” which examines national (re)imaging and rebranding projects with a focus on Viet Nam’s development in the area of sustainability and sovereignty. In this area she works on revitalization of ethnic spaces like Chinatown Square in Sacramento and Little Saigon in Oakland. She also works on image making projects in Viet Nam and UC Davis. Her future research project looks at spirit realm beliefs and the history of its exclusion from the US academy, as well as the importance of its return. More on Prof. Valverde can be found @ kieulinh.com.