People
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Kate McDonald

Director, East Asia Center
Associate Professor, Department of History

Kate McDonald is Associate Professor of Modern Japanese History at UC Santa Barbara. Dr. McDonald is the author of Placing Empire: Travel and the Social Imagination in Imperial Japan (California, 2017) and co-director of the NEH-funded digital spatial history project, Bodies and Structures: Deep-Mapping Modern East Asian History. In addition to her work with EAC, Dr. McDonald currently serves as the Associate Editor for Japan at the field’s flagship journal, Journal of Asian Studies.

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Shiva Balaghi

Academic Coordinator

Dr. Shiva Balaghi is a cultural historian specializing in the visual culture of the Middle East and its diasporas. She is Academic Coordinator of the Area Global Initiative at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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Bashar Tarabieh

Financial Analyst

Bashar Tarabieh is Financial Analyst for the Area Global Initiative and the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies.