2023-2024

Tappy Lung is from New York and is a senior undergraduate student at the Elliott School of International Affairs. She is double majoring in International Affairs and Political Communication, concentrating on Asian identities, politics, diplomacy, and development. During her TERP Fellowship, Tappy will be surveying the experiences of foreign students in Taiwan to understand the role of academic exchange in Taiwan’s public diplomacy. 

Faculty Advisor: Christopher Teal

Research Project: “Taiwan’s Public Diplomacy Through Academic Exchange Programs“

Fall 2024 and Beyond

Following her TERP fellowship, Tappy graduated Magna Cum Laude from the Elliott School of International Affairs with a BA in International Affairs and Political Communication. She spent the summer presenting her research findings to various stakeholders and preparing her paper, Evaluating the Discourse of Former Exchange Students in Taiwan: Lessons for International Education Public Diplomacy, for publication in an academic journal. She now works as an Associate at the Center for International Private Enterprise, where she supports local entrepreneurship in Asia through economic development and democracy promotion programs. She plans to continue working at the intersection of policy research and international development.

Hong-Lun Tiunn, MPH, is a research associate at Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity and a Health Policy Ph.D. student at the Milken Institute School of Public Health. His research interest focuses on the labor policy issue of healthcare workforces. He is involved in research projects related to international migration of Taiwanese nurses to the US. Before joining GW, he served multiple years as chief of staff for a member of the Taiwanese parliament and helped to establish labor unions for Taiwanese healthcare professionals. He also holds a certification as an occupational hygienist.

Faculty Advisor: Patricia (Polly) Pittman

Research Project: “Addressing Nurse Brain Drain: An Investigation of Taiwanese Nurses’ Migration to the United States”

Simran Dali is a first-year graduate student at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, pursuing an M.A. in Asian Studies with a thematic specialization in Taiwan/China and a professional specialization in Global Gender Policy. Simran holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Studies from Dickinson College, with a concentration in East Asia. With a background in health studies and an internship at the US-Taiwan Business Council, Simran’s academic journey reflects a commitment to understanding and addressing social, economics, and health issues, particularly in the context of East Asia. Proficient in English, Nepali, Marathi, Hindi, and possessing basic knowledge of French and Mandarin. Simran hopes to bring a multilingual perspective to her research on language barriers impacting the socioeconomic integration of foreign brides in Taiwan.

Faculty Advisor: Kuniko Ashizawa

Research Project: “The Dual Effects of Language Barriers on Economic and Social Integration of Foreign Brides in Taiwan“

Fall 2024 and Beyond

Since completing the TERP Fellowship, Simran has been actively engaged in leadership and advocacy efforts that focus on promoting gender equity, peacebuilding, and inclusive policies, which align with her academic focus on issues related to human rights and migration. Currently, Simran serves as Treasurer for the DC Student Consortium on Women, Peace, and Security at GW and as the Second Year Graduate Representative for the Elliott School’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council. Simran is also working on a capstone project focused on North Korean women defectors and human trafficking. Moving forward, Simran plans to continue advancing in international gender policy and advocacy, focusing on empowering marginalized communities through inclusive practices.

Alex Wan is a sophomore undergraduate at the George Washington University majoring in International Affairs and Art History with a concentration in Asia and Contemporary Cultures and Societies. Born in Vancouver, he grew up in Beijing before attending school in Maryland. His interests include collective memory and nationalism in China, and of historic Taiwanese language policy. In his free time, he enjoys swimming, traveling, and skiing. Alex will be collaborating with Aidan Boyle on the research project, “Linguistic Legacies in Taiwan’s Age of Reconciliation”, advised by James Evans.

Faculty Advisor: James Evans

Research Project: “Linguistic Legacies in Taiwan’s Age of Reconciliation”

Fall 2024 and Beyond

After completing the TERP Fellowship, Alex recognized the important role that the private sector should play in promoting research and understanding of marginalized communities. Alex has since completed a policy analysis internship with TikTok Inc. in Los Angeles, where he developed a rigorous understanding of digital policy and society’s relationship with mass media.  He is currently studying abroad in Barcelona as part of an exchange program with the ESADE Law School to further understand modernization theory and global business perspectives. He also serves as Co-Director of Events of the China Affairs Forum at GW. Alex attributes a significant part of his success to the TERP Fellowship, which has allowed him to develop important research skills and a remarkable opportunity to grow. Alex hopes that the skills and knowledge he has developed through the Fellowship can be used to promote indigenous cultural awareness and provide policy advice for stakeholders in reconciliation processes.

Aidan Boyle is a sophomore undergraduate student at the George Washington University pursuing a double major in International Affairs with a concentration in Conflict Resolution and Chinese Language and Literature. Born and raised in Taipei, Aidan moved to Washington, DC as a freshman in college to pursue higher education. Aidan will work alongside Alex Wan to research Kuomintang language policies and their effects on voter sentiment in the 2024 Taiwanese presidential election. His interests include modern Taiwanese history, cross-strait relations, and the Taiwanese transitional justice movement. Outside of the classroom, he enjoys lifting weights and playing rugby. Aidan will be collaborating with Alex Wan on the research project, “Linguistic Legacies in Taiwan’s Age of Reconciliation”, advised by James Evans. 

Faculty Advisor: James Evans

Research Project: “Linguistic Legacies in Taiwan’s Age of Reconciliation”

Faculty Advisors

Kuniko Ashizawa, who has a doctorate in international relations, has more than 15 years of teaching and research experience on Japan’s foreign policy, international relations of East Asia, and global governance, for which she has published a number of academic journal articles and book chapters, including in International Studies Review, Pacific Affairs, the Pacific Review, Journal of Peacebuilding and Development. She was a visiting fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the East-West Center in Washington, and the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies, SAIS. Dr. Ashizawa previously taught at Oxford Brookes University in the UK.

James Gethyn Evans is a scholar of modern and contemporary China with a focus on China’s foreign relations with the Global South. His research interests include China’s foreign relations with non-state actors, the global impact of Maoism, and anti-imperialism and decolonization movements during the Cold War. He is currently a PhD candidate at Harvard University, where he is writing a dissertation on how the People’s Republic of China engaged with global networks of revolutionaries through the promotion of Mao Zedong Thought in the 1960s and 1970s.

Patricia (Polly) Pittman is the Fitzhugh Mullan Professor of Health Workforce Equity at the Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University. As director of the  Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity, Dr. Pittman has built an extensive research enterprise focusing on policies that enable the health workforce to better address health equity, including protecting the labor rights of health workers. Her current portfolio includes directing an HRSA-supported Health Workforce Research Center and several foundation-supported grants. Trained in medical anthropology and public health, she works with interdisciplinary teams in mixed methods designs. She has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and has served as PI on over 40 research grants relating to health workforce policy. These most recently include a background paper commissioned by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) for the new National Academies of Medicine Committee on Nursing 2020-2030. She teaches Health Workforce Policy.

Before joining the Department of Health Policy in 2010, she taught comparative health systems at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and served as Executive Vice President of AcademyHealth. Over the years, she has worked as a consultant on health systems research for the Pan American Health Organization, WHO’s Tropical Disease Research Program, World Bank, Johns Hopkins University, and multiple foundations. In the early part of her career, she lived in Argentina, where she worked in human rights and later as the Director of Social Programs for the Province of Buenos Aires.

Chris Teal is a current public diplomacy fellow. Previously, he was the director of the State Department’s Career Development and Assignments Mid-Level Division, heading up a 35-member team in charge of global diplomatic assignments for Mid-Level Foreign Service Officers, some 9,000 officials in total.

He also served a faculty assignment at the Inter-American Defense College at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C.  There he taught graduate classes to senior-level Latin American officials on diplomacy, civil/military relations, human rights, peace keeping, and media/security policy.