Teaching Faculty
Dr. Jason Abbott, Political Science, Southeast Asia
Aung San Suu Kyi Endowed Chair, Center for Asian Democracy
Director, Center of Asian Democracy
Associate Professor, Political Science
Dr. Jason Abbott joined the university in July 2010, after previously holding positions at The University of Surrey, The School of Oriental and African Studies at The University of London, and the Department of International Studies, Nottingham Trent University. He is the author/editor of five books and over 20 articles and book chapters on issues of democratization, economic development, political economy and regional security in Southeast Asia (and Malaysia in particular). He is also an experienced broadcaster and has provided interviews to a range of media organizations, including the BBC 24, BBC World Service, CNN, Al-Jazeera and Voice of America as well as consultancy advice to Research Analysts at the Foreign Office of the United Kingdom, Oxford Analytica, and the International Transport Workers Federation (a study on the impact of globalization with Dr. Frank Faulkner, University of Derby).
Research: Comparative Democratization • Comparative Politics • Political Economy • International Security • Political Organizations and Parties • International History and Politics • Religion and Politics, Race • Ethnicity and Politics • Elections and Voting Behavior • Political Communication • Information Technology and Politics.
Room 204, Stevenson Hall • 502-852-6832 • Email • Website
Moon-he Baik, Fine Arts,
Associate Professor of Interior Architecture
Professor Baik graduated with a B.F.A. from Ewha University, in Korea, in 1981. She earned her M.F.A. at the University of North Texas in 1989. She has taught courses at the University of Seoul, in Korea and continues to work in interior design.
Teaching Areas: ART 105, 361, 563, 564, 567, 596
Room 25, Schneider Hall • 502-852-0925 • Email • Website
Ying Kit Chan, Fine Arts, Southeast Asia
Professor of Art, Chairperson of the Department of Fine Arts
Director of the Hite Art Institute
Professor Ying Kit Chan is a native of Hong Kong. In the 70's, he studied art at the Hong Kong Baptist College, Hong Kong Buddhist College, Hong Kong Polytechnic and Studio 11. In 1979, he continued his study in the United States, and received his BFA from the University of Oklahoma (1981) and MFA from the University of Cincinnati (1983). Since 2003, he has been attending the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee (Switzerland) and Paris, and has taken seminars with some of the world's most visionary thinkers including the late Jacques Derrida and Jean Baudrillard. For over three decades, Professor Chan has been exhibiting his art work in over 150 exhibitions in the United States as well as in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada, Australia, Ecuador, Germany, Korea, Japan, England, Poland and Portugal. His recent solo exhibitions include INDEXG Gallery (2010, 2007) in Toronto, LEE Gallery in Toronto (2001), Gallery 456 in New York (1999), Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taipei (1993), Taiwan Museum of Art in Taichung (1992) and A.R.C. Gallery in Chicago (1989). At the University of Louisville, Professor Chan served as the Head of the Studio Programs from 1997 to 2010, and is currently the Chairperson of the Department of Fine Arts. He is an affiliate faculty of the Asian Studies program, the Social Change program and the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research, the Center for Asian Democracy as well as a member of the Humanities PhD Program Steering Committee.
Research: Contemporary practices in drawing • Digital media and new media studies • Contemporary art issues • Cross cultural and critical theories • Chinese arts theory and criticism • Ethics, aesthetics and semiotics • Analytic and Continental aesthetics • Sustainability and environmental ethics
Schneider Hall, Room 104 • 502-852-6794 • Website • yingkitchan.com
Nan-Ting Chou, PhD, Economics
Associate Professor
Research: Public Communication Campaigns • Children and Television • Global Mass Media
College of Business, Room 158 • (502) 852-4840 • Email • CV
Margaret D’Silva, Communication, Southeast Asia
Professor of Communication
Margaret D'Silva earned her Ph.D. at the University of Kentucky. Her research interests include intercultural communication and the effects of mass media. She is the author of the book, HIV/AIDS prevention and health communication. (with Hart, J. L., & Walker, K. L). She is also the General editor for Intercultural Communication Studies. She received the Presidential Exemplary Multicultural Teaching Award for the University of Louisville in 2006.
dsilva@louisville.edu • Website
Kristopher Grady, Ph.D., Political Science 
Assistant Professor, Political Science
Undergraduate Advisor, Political Science
Second Floor, Room 202, Ford Hall, Bellknap Campus • 502-852-1928 • 502-852-7923 • Email
Shiping Hua, Political Science, East Asia
Dr. Shiping Hua, originally from China, is the Calvin and Helen Lang Distinguished Chair in Asian Studies and Director of the Asian Studies Program at the University of Louisville.
He has authored and edit/co-edited 9 books in English,including Chinese Utopianism: A Comparative Study of Reformist Thought in Japan and Russia1898-1997 published by Stanford University Press in 2009 and Scientism and Humanism: Two Cultures in Post-Mao China1978-1989 published by the State University of New York Press in 1995.
He is the general editor of three book series: Comparative Asian Politics published by Routledge, Asia in the New Millennium with University Press of Kentucky annually in English and Contemporary World’s Classics: Political Science Series published annually with Renmin University Press in Chinese.
He is currently Council Member of the Association of Asian Studies. Dr. Hua is a guest professor with China’s Shanghai Jiaotong University, Jilin University, and Nankai University.
Office: Guy Stevenson Hall, Room 402.
Phone: (502) 852-3305
Email:shiping.hua@louisville.edu
Delin Lai, Art History, Southeast Asia
Assistant Professor
Before joining the faculty of the Department of Fine Art in 2007, Professor Delin Lai taught at Oberlin College from 2006 to 2007. Dr. Lai specializes in modern Chinese architecture and has published two books: Jindai Zhejiang Lu (Who’s who in modern Chinese architecture, 2006), which was one of the ten books that received the First Architectural Book Award of China in 2008, and Zhongguo Jindai Jianzhushi Yanjiu (Studies in modern Chinese architecture, 2007). Professor Lai also published many articles in both Chinese and English, among them are “Searching for a Modern Chinese Monument: the design of the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing, 1925-1929” in The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (March, 2005) and "Renewing, Remapping, and Redefining Guangzhou, 1910s - 1930s" in Looking Modern: East Asian Visual Culture from Treaty Ports to World War II (Jennifer Purtle and Hans Bjarne Thomsen, eds., 2009).
Research: modern Chinese architecture
Room 146, Lutz Hall • 502-852-0445 • Email • Website
Michael M. Losavio, J.D., Criminal Procedure and Law, Computer Forensics
Michael M. Losavio is an attorney working on issues of law, ethics and society and information security in the computer engineering and justice administration disciplines He works with the Department of Justice Administration and the Department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Louisville in teaching and training in these areas. He has worked for the Administrative Office of the Courts of the Kentucky Court of Justice and the federal Legal Services Corporation and served as the Jefferson Circuit Court Clerk in 2006.
He teaches and publishes on the synthesis of legal/ethical precepts and social science data with computer engineering, digital forensics and computing's impact on judicial and legal practice. Mr. Losavio also works on curriculum development for conferences, courses and seminars on the impact of information and computing systems in a variety of disciplines.
He holds a J.D from Louisiana State University Law School, and a B.S. in Mathematics, also from Louisiana State University, U.S.A.
Research: synthesis of legal/ethical precepts
Brigman Hall Rm. 219 • 502-852-630 • Email • Website
Yuxin Ma, Chinese History
Associate Professor of East Asian History
Yuxin Ma is an Associate Professor of East Asian history. Her specialties are late imperial and Republican China and Chinese women’s history. Currently Ma studies the lives, screen performances, and media reports of Man’ei actresses, and explores the intersections between gender, Japanese imperialism and culture modernity in Manchukuo. Ma has taught courses on Traditional China, Modern China, Modern Japan and East Asian Women’s History. Yuxin Ma’s research interest is women’s history in modern China. Her monograph Women Journalists and Feminism in China1898-1937 (Cambria, 2010) explores how women journalists broke down the gender segregation in the public sphere and produces historical accounts of the social changes around them and in their own lives.
Research: women’s history in modern China
Room 103 B, Gottschalk Hall • 502-852-6817 • Website
John McLeod, History, Southeast Asia
Professor of History
Most of Dr. McLeod's research is on the history of India during the colonial period. He has published three books: Sovereignty, Power, Control: Politics in the States of Western India, 1916-1947, which came out in 1999; The History of India, published in 2002; and African Elites in India, co-edited with Kenneth X. Robbins and released in 2006. He is now working on two more books, Indian Tory: A Biography of Sir Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree (that's him below), and Rajmandal: Historical and Genealogical Notes on the Royal Families of South Asia. He has also written articles and book reviews in American, Australian, British, Canadian and Indian journals. Since coming to U of L in 1995, he has taught courses on the History of Civilizations; British Imperialism; Civilizations of Ancient and Medieval India; Civilizations of Modern India; English History; the English Monarchy and the Birth of the Modern Age (which culminated in a two-week trip to England); the History of India; Royalty in Indian History (which included a trip to India); and Victorian Britain.
Research: Great Britain • British Empire • South Asia
Room 103 E, Gottschalk Hall • (502) 852-6817 • Email • Website
Patrick Pranke, Religion, South and Southeast Asia
Assistant Professor in Humanities (Religious Studies)
Patrick Pranke received his PhD at the University of Michigan. Dr. Pranke holds a Ph.D. in Buddhist Stuides from the University of Michigan, currently he is an Assistant Professor of Humanities at the University of Louisville. His area of specialization is Burmese Buddhism and Burmese popular cults, research for which he conducted over the course of several years in the Sagaing Hills, Upper Burma. In addition to his experiences in Burma, Dr. Pranke has been a teacher and administrator on the University of Wisconsin's College of the Year India Program, and Antioch College's Buddhist Studies Program in North India, and he maintains strong academic interests in Hindu fold traditions.
Research: Burmese Buddhism • Burmese popular cults
Room 200 F, Bingham Humanities • (502) 852-7140 • Email • Website
Wei Song, Geography, Chinese Geography
Professor of Geography & Geosciences
Professor Song attended Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
Research: Location Analysis, Transportation Geography, Urban Crime Issues, Quantitative Methods, Geographic Information Systems Applications, Geography of China
Room 218, Lutz Hall • 502-852-2690 • Email • Website
Hiromi Taniguchi, PhD, Sociology
Hiromi Taniguchi is an associate professor of sociology whose current studies include cross-national comparisons of attitudes about children, and the interface between paid work and family life. She also studies civic engagement of various forms (e.g., volunteering, charitable giving, social protest) in the US and Japan.
109 Lutz Hall • Email• (502) 852-8005
Areas of research/expertise: sociology of work and family, voluntary sector research | CV
Li Zeng, Chinese Language and Society
Associate Professor of Chinese
Dr. Zeng received his Ph.D. in Chinese Literature at the University of Toronto. He is the Director of the Chinese Studies Program at the University of Louisville.
Research: Chinese culture, Chinese civilization, and Chinese language and theatre.
Room 302 B, Humanities • 502-852-0493 • Email • Website
Haifeng Zhang, Geography, Chinese Geography
Assistant Professor of Geography and Geosciences
Professor Zhang studied at the University of South Carolina.
Research: Crime Mapping • Spatial Demography • Race/Ethnicity • Education Issues • GIS, Quantitative Methods
Room 216, Lutz Hall • 502-852-2695 • Email • Website
Andrew Zhao, Anthropology, China
Assistant Professor, Ph.D.
Professor Zhao studied at the University of Pittsburgh.
Research: Globalization • capitalism • family and kinship • social change • clothing and the clothing industry • anthropological political economy • China
Room 235, Lutz Hall • (502)852-3078 • Email • Website
Charles Ziegler, Political Science, Central Asia and Russia Far East
Professor of Political Science
Director, Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order
Distinguished University Scholar
Professor Ziegler was born in farm country near Plymouth, Indiana and graduated from a public high school there in 1971. Most of his professional life has been spent in Louisville. He taught at a small college in Florida for one year before coming to UofL in 1980. He also lived in California, Great Britain and South Korea, and traveled throughout Europe, Asia, and parts of Latin America. His hobbies include music, biking, hiking, pool volleyball, Taekwondo, and raising an energetic boy. Some publications include “The History of Russia, 2nd edition” (Greenwood Press, 2009), “Civil Society, Political Stability, and State Power in Central Asia: Cooperation and Contestation,” Democratization, Vol. 17, Issue 5 (2010) and “Russia, Central Asia, and the Caucasus after the Georgia Conflict,” in Roger E. Kanet, ed. Russian Foreign Policy in the 21st Century (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). He earned his Bachelor's degree in Political Science at Purdue University, his Masters in Political Science and his PhD in Political Science at the University of Illinois. He teaches topics on Russia and Eurasia, the Politics of Oil, Comparative Political Culture, Theories of Comparative Politics, and Democratization.
Research: Comparative Politics • Political Economy • Foreign Policy • Comparative Democratization • Russia and Eurasia.
Room 103, Ford Hall • 502-852-3248 • Email • Website