In July, graduate student Chun Chia Tai will present at a conference and soon after will begin a fellowship in Taiwan.

Tai, a doctoral student in ethnomusicology, was recently awarded a 2023 Austronesian fellowship provided by the Office of Fellowships for Austronesian Studies at National Chengchi University in Taiwan.

Tai was also selected to present at the 5th Pacific Islands Universities Research Network Conference, or PIURN, in Rarotonga, Cook Islands in July. Cook Islands are in the South Pacific Ocean, about 2,000 miles northeast of New Zealand. This conference is organized by the Pacific Islands Universities Research Network, a consortium comprising 14 universities across the Pacific Islands Countries and Territories. 

“This fellowship enables me to bridge the gap between Pacific studies, which explores the diversity and flexibility of Pacific Islanders’ Indigeneity, and Austronesian studies, grounded in Taiwanese Indigenous people’s social and political activism,” Tai said. “It allows me to enrich the interaction between Pacific Islanders in Southern California and Taiwanese Indigenous people, fostering collaboration and mutual support.”

Tai’s dissertation in ethnomusicology is titled, “Amidst the Fertile Shoals of the Trans-Pacific Indigenous Diaspora: Reggae of Pacific Islanders in Southern California.”

  

She has worked as a graduate teaching assistant at UCR since 2018 and is a current Gluck Fellow. This year, she designed and led a series of workshops across multiple K-12 schools, including a three-week class where students learned how to create radio dramas, podcasts, and interviews. 

“She also gone above and beyond for the Gluck program by working with faculty member Dr. Xóchitl Chávez and fellow graduate student Pedro López de la Osa to put on a concert series at Pentland Hills here on the UCR campus,” said Liz Przybylski, associate professor of ethnomusicology, via email. 

Recent accolades for Tai also include receiving the International Fellowship from the American Association of University Women for her dissertation research. In recognition of the best student paper presented at the Society for Ethnomusicology Conference on an Indigenous music topic, she won The Charlotte Frisbie Student Paper Prize in 2022, Przybylski said.