Nancy Abelmann

Nancy Abelmann joined the University of Illinois faculty in 1990, and was a scholar in Anthropology, Asian American Studies, East Asian Languages and Cultures, and Gender and Women’s Studies. She was a member of the core committee that founded the Asian American Studies program (now department). Nancy also co-founded the Ethnography of the University Initiative (EUI) in 2002; served as the Director of the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies from 2005 to 2008; and beginning in 2009, Nancy was the first Associate Vice Chancellor for Research for the Humanities, Arts and Related Fields, where she created several research groups and workshops. She is a world-renowned scholar of Korean and Korean American Studies. Nancy passed away in the spring of 2016 after battling cancer.