Asian American Scientists and US-Asian Scientific Interaction

Session Submission Type: Organized Session

English Abstract

This panel investigates the role of science in modernization policies formulated in China and South Korea after 1945 and how scientists acted as mediators or critics on political issues as they became part of the transnational exchange.

After the Second World War, East Asian nations regarded Western science as a means to achieve modernization and industrialization. The United States became a leading destination for scientists from East Asian countries to travel to as they actively participated in the scientific exchange and accumulated knowledge. These scientists gained prominence by becoming advisors in implementing science policies, voicing their concerns on political decisions, and becoming cultural role models. We examine the career trajectory and cultural identity of a Korean-American physicist, the construction of China's first high-energy particle accelerator, the political engagement taken by Chinese and Chinese-American scientists over the past five decades, and the flow of scientists between China and the United States in today's biotech industry. Through these stories, we question how scientists become part of political processes or policy formation and how such policies shape scientific research. We also seek to understand how the circulation of people and knowledge is contingent on the ongoing politico-economic and sociocultural dynamics and how Asians, Asian Americans, and other Americans are differently affected in these processes.

Sub Unit

• Organized Session

Chair

• Victor Seow, Harvard University

Individual Presentations

• From Korean to Korean-American: modernization of post-1945 Korea seen through the trajectory of physicist Benjamin W. Lee - Eun-Joo Ahn, University of California Santa Barbara

• Science Diplomats and Accidental Activists: Five Decades of Political Engagement for Chinese Scientists in the US - Yangyang Cheng, Yale University

• Transnational Big Science: Chinese American Scientists and the Making of the Beijing Electron Positron Collider - Zuoyue Wang, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

• Science on the Move: Talent Circulation in an Age of Global Competition and Risk - Shunan You

Session Organizer

• Eun-Joo Ahn, University of California Santa Barbara