Collaboration

The most impactful work occurs when diverse groups tackle complex problems. I help create these groups in my work, in various community-building endeavors, and in partnerships with external organizations and partners.

Community Building

I enjoy building and strengthening scholarly communities related to my research interests. I have organized (or co-organized) 4 conferences, 7 mini-conferences, and nearly 200 seminars and workshops. I’ve taken a particular interest in virtual workshops, since they democratize the spread of research and the dissemination of high-quality feedback.

Virtual workshops

APOSS

I’ve founded or co-founded three long-standing virtual workshops. Most recently, I was the founder and co-organizer of the Asian Politics Online Political Seminar Series (APOSS). The series, motivated by the wave of conference and seminar cancellations in spring 2020, aimed to provide political scientists working in, on, or adjacent to Asia a forum where they could receive feedback about their work in progress. The series ran for 104 workshops and had an active community of nearly 500 scholars subscribed to its mailing list.

A survey I conducted of APOSS attendees shows that folks found the workshop more useful for their research than attending annual professional conferences and better than other online seminar series. Attendees praised the workshop extensively for its approach to diversity and building community. Here are some select remarks:

This workshop has been a gem for many scholars who do not have many opportunities to network with other scholars and to present their work.

Thank you immensely for coordinating this - it was an absolute lifesaver for me, especially during the challenging times of COVID.

This workshop did a better job in maintaining equity. I find other workshops elitist, clearly favoring participants from elitist universities.

By giving PhD students/candidates the chance to present their research virtually, APOSS is really a valuable platform to increase early career researchers the chance to introduce their works. Furthermore, since it is online, scholars from third-world countries like myself can present my research without worrying about visa issues.

[It’s] accessible to all scholars including early career scholars, graduate students and international scholars.

JPOSS

I was also co-founder and co-organizer of the Japanese Politics Online Seminar Series (JPOSS), a virtual forum to present and discuss research-in-progress on questions related to Japanese politics, broadly defined. The series, still ongoing, ran for 40 sessions before I left my role.

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Please submit your work to JPOSS!

VWAR

In addition, I co-founded and co-organized the Virtual Workshop on Authoritarian Regimes (VWAR) for several years. This workshop provided scholars of authoritarian regimes with an opportunity to receive feedback from multiple discussants on their research in progress. We held 43 sessions together over my four years of involvement.

Workshop presenter feedback

A survey I continuously conducted of VWAR and APOSS presenters shows that most participants (1) thought that their participation was more useful for their research than presenting at a large conference and (2) rated VWAR/APOSS better than other virtual workshops at which they had presented. 👇

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Virtual workshop evaluations

Research on collaboration and scientific community

Based on my experiences running several virtual workshops, I put together a spotlight for PS: Political Science & Politics that focuses on how these spaces can increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in the discipline.

Coauthors

I like conducting research with other people, and I've been very lucky to work with many talented, kind scholars across institutions, fields, and countries. I encourage you to check out their websites, read their research, and collaborate with them as well.