Photo:(L-R) Ms. Cynthia Huang, Director of the Education Division at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Boston; Dr. Hsieh Kuo-hsing, Director of the Institute of Taiwan History at Academia Sinica; Ms. Hsu Ching-fang, NATSA’s 2016 president-elect; and Mr. Tu Feng-en, NATSA’s 2015 president.

The 21st Annual Conference of the North American Taiwan Studies Association (NATSA), sponsored by the Ministry of Education (MOE), was held at Harvard University on June 12 and 13. Several renowned scholars working in the Taiwan studies field were invited to be speakers and panelists. These included Dr. Robert Weller from Boston University, Dr. Rebecca Nedostup from Brown University, and two people who work at the Academia Sinica in Taiwan: Dr. Hsieh Kuo-hsing from the Institute of Taiwan History, and Dr. Chen Chih-Jou Jay, from the Institute of Social Sciences.

Ms. Cynthia Huang, Director of the Education Division at Teco-Boston, was invited to make some remarks at the reception. She said that the Ministry of Education has been a longtime supporter of NATSA. The Ministry established the Taiwan Studies Program to enhance Taiwan studies globally, and now has cooperative partnerships with 36 colleges and universities around the world. In the New England region, the Ministry and Boston University have been working together for nine years, and Brown University will begin participating in the Taiwan Studies program this fall, she said.

NATSA was founded by several Ph.D. students engaged in Taiwan- related research. Tts first conference was held at Yale University in 1994 and the annual academic gathering has now become the largest Taiwan studies event in North America. Mr. Tu Feng-en, a Harvard University Ph.D. student currently studying in the History and East Asian Languages department is the current president of NASTA. Ms. Hsu Ching-fang, a Ph.D. student at the University of Toronto has been elected to be its 2016president.