Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of profiles of notable fall 2023 graduates.

A Phoenix native and daughter of ASU Associate Professor Kathryn Nakagawa, Thea Eigo decided that they wanted to go out of state for college to experience a new area. Soon after their first semester began, they realized that Phoenix and ASU were calling them back. Thea Eigo, the Dean’s Medalist for the School of Social Transformation, is graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in women and gender studies, as well as a minor in Asian Pacific American studies. Download Full Image

Their second semester of freshman year, they transferred to ASU and quickly created a new community. Eigo is graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in women and gender studies, as well as a minor in Asian Pacific American studies. Eigo served on the executive board for the Asian/Asian Pacific American Student Coalition, was involved in the sexual health club Devils in the Bedroom, and worked in the Sexual and Relationship Violence Program as a student educator and employee.

Their involvement in and out of the classroom greatly impacted the experiences that they were able to have at ASU.

“My professors provided a lot of support for me throughout my time at ASU! I am very grateful for my women and gender studies professors and the School of Social Transformation as a whole,” Eigo stated.

As Dean’s Medalist for the School of Social Transformation, Eigo said they are very grateful for the opportunities and those they were able to meet at ASU.

Question: What’s the best piece of advice you would give to students?

Answer: The best piece of advice I would give to students would be to try not to rush your college experience! It is OK to take time to figure out what major or field you are interested in. I encourage you to take interesting classes and make your education enjoyable. It is very easy to get burned out, so take your time and have fun.

Q: What was your “aha” moment when you realized you wanted to study the field you majored in?

A: When I started college, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to study, so I started out by taking a few general courses, women and gender studies being one of them. It was a higher-level course, and I had the best time. I soon realized this was the right major for me because I felt really accepted and heard by everyone.

Q: What’s something you learned while at ASU that surprised you?

A: Something I love about ASU is how diverse it is and the number of communities and opportunities you can find here. At a smaller school, it can be really easy to get your foot in the door, but that doesn’t always bring a lot of opportunities. At a big school, it can be harder to get started and find your community, but once you do, there is so much more to offer — and no matter what your background is or where you come from, there is a place for everyone at ASU.

The Asia Center at Arizona State University is leading the development of a new online textbook to help teach the Burmese language.

Chan Lwin, the center’s program manager, was awarded a three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s International Research and Studies Program to develop an open education resource textbook for Burmese language instruction. The instructors leading the development of the Burmese language learning textbook (from left): Ye Tun, Maw Htun and Chan Lwin. Photo courtesy Choua Lee Download Full Image

Lwin has taught Burmese at the University of Wisconsin and ASU, and her contributions will add to a lustrous history of textbook authors for this understudied and under-resourced language.

Lwin, who joined ASU in 2017, is enthusiastic about the project and emphasized its critical role in addressing the absence of online resources for intermediate-level Burmese language learners, particularly in the wake of the recent military coup in Myanmar amid the global pandemic. 

She will collaborate with fellow Burmese language instructors across the United States, including Maw Maw Htun of Northern Illinois University, Ye Min Tun of Johns Hopkins University and Kenneth Wong of the University of California-Berkeley.

The team aims to fill the educational gap in minority-serving institutions. The goal is to promote equitable access to educational resources, especially for students seeking to learn rare languages like Burmese.

This collaboration builds on a long history of working together on various projects, including a reading proficiency assessment workshop and a reading material development workshop by The Southeast Asian Language Council, with funding from the Henry Luce Foundation.

Lwin said that this latest grant results from many years of teamwork. 

Set to conclude in 2025, the envisioned digital textbook will be a unique resource explicitly tailored to the needs of Burmese language studies. This endeavor is especially significant given that only three universities in the U.S. regularly offer Burmese language courses.

Lwin emphasized the geopolitical importance of Myanmar’s strategic location between India and China, underscoring the need for language studies in the current political landscape. 

“Myanmar language studies play a critical role in area studies, now more than ever. We are extremely grateful for this opportunity for those who wish to learn the language,” Lwin said.

This groundbreaking initiative addresses the educational gap in Burmese language instruction and contributes to the broader understanding of the region’s significance in global affairs. 

Story written by Chan Lwin

In an effort to improve the health of tribal communities and Indigenous people, the National Institutes of Health has awarded $9 million in funding for Native scientists at Arizona State University and elsewhere to create the first Indigenous-led tribal data repository.

Since the SARS-CoV-2 worldwide pandemic began, global Indigenous communities have been particularly hard hit, with health disparities including lack of access to health care and undue burden of infections leading to increased hospitalizations and higher death rates. ASU School of Life Sciences Assistant Professor Krystal Tsosie (a member of the Diné/Navajo Nation) will lead a $1.2 million sub-award of the tribal data repository project to research and design the ethical approaches to data sharing, analysis and implementation. ASU photo Download Full Image

In response, Indigenous researchers and scientists have been working to secure and fund efforts to better understand the impact of COVID-19 and provide data to allow for informed decisions and policy development in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and potential future pandemics.

The new RADx Tribal Data Repository: Data for Indigenous Implementations, Interventions and Innvovations (RADx TDR D4I) involves six collaborative research awards, including prime awardee Stanford University, along with Arizona State University, the Native BioData Consortium, Ohio State University, University of California-Santa Cruz, University of Washington, Seattle and University of Wisconsin-Madison.

One of the six awards is to ASU School of Life Sciences Assistant Professor Krystal Tsosie (a member of the Diné/Navajo Nation), who will lead a $1.2 million sub-award of the tribal data repository project to research and design the ethical approaches to data sharing, analysis and implementation. In particular, Tsosie focuses on bioethical engagement of Indigenous communities in genomics and data science to build trust. As a whole, her interest is in integrating genomic and data approaches to assess Indigenous variation contributing to health inequities.

As an advocate for Indigenous genomic data sovereignty, she also co-founded the first U.S. Indigenous-led biobank, a 501c3 nonprofit research institution called the Native BioData Consortium, or NativeBio.

“We started NativeBio with a very simple premise: that research on Indigenous peoples’ samples should be led by Indigenous community members and Indigenous scientists,” Tsosie said. “‘For us, by us’ has been our motto to drive researcher questions and to better understand the data. Sometimes outsiders fail to understand factors that contribute to disparaties and health inequities outside the research samples.”

The Native BioData Consortium will be the overall project leader, working with five scholars at premier research universities and at 10 health sites using American Indian and Alaskan Native public health data to help design ethical approaches to data sharing, data analysis, implementation, policy and legal frameworks. The goal is to more immediately serve tribal populations following the disproportional impact of COVID-19 in Indigenous communities.

“The award is a landmark decision in support of Indigenous peoples," said Joseph Yracheta (Purepecha), executive director of NativeBio. “Though apparent, the true extent of COVID-19 disparities among Indigenous people is likely underestimated. This is mostly because of underreporting in the absence of a unified, Indigenous-led data resource to facilitate data collection, interagency cooperation, guide COVID-19 research and subsequent implementations.”

The project adds to an NIH effort begun three years ago to increase the overall understanding of COVID-19 and its effects on American Indian and Alaska Native communities across the nation, called the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics Underserved Populations (or RADx-UP) inititiave.

“The RADx initiative points to the need for tribal sovereign protection of Indigenous data that has been missing since the inception of federal scientific programs,“ said Matt Anderson, associate professor of medical genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (and Eastern Band of Cherokee descent). “Scientists are accountable to Indigenous people in the use of tribal data, and NativeBio is accountable to Indian Country as being good stewards of their data. This approach models systems and understandings that more closely align with Indigenous mechanisms of community responsibility.”

Specific activities will include education and training programs on best practices for responsible data sharing and access, and constructing a secure repository to support data storage, access, monitoring and sharing of data related to COVID-19 testing and vaccination.

For Tsosie, the new NIH award marks another full circle moment in her early academic career. Tsosie is also an ASU alumna (BS in microbiology and MA in applied ethics) and began an appointment in January to make a difference as the first Indigenous geneticist-bioethicist at Arizona State University.

“I was excited to come back to ASU and serve as an advocate for Indigenous communities," Tsosie said. “I want to bring all of these skill sets related to health inequities and genetic epidemiology back to the communities that I grew up with.

“Who better to protect our data and improve research about us than Indigenous people themselves?”

Louis Carr, president of media sales at Black Entertainment Television (BET), will serve as the keynote fall 2023 convocation speaker at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The ceremony will take place at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 13, at the Desert Financial Arena in Tempe.  BET President of Media Sales Louis Carr. Courtesy photo Download Full Image

Carr, who was recently inducted into the American Adversiting Federation (AAF) Advertising Hall of Fame, is an award-winning media executive who is credited with propelling BET Media Group to the No. 1 brand and choice for Black consumers. Under Carr’s leadership, the company has generated more than $10 billion in advertising sales while establishing strategic partnerships with global corporations such as Procter & Gamble, Unilever, McDonald’s, General Motors, Facebook and Apple.

The media company has cultivated the largest repository of information on Black consumers worldwide, which has enabled Carr to take a data-driven approach to creating content and messages that resonate with diverse audiences, enabling marketers to sell products and services while fostering corporate citizenship.

“Louis Carr is one of the most accomplished media executives and thought leaders in the industry. His leadership has allowed BET to become one of the most profitable networks in the country, and his service to the community has left an indelible mark on numerous professionals,” said Cronkite School Dean Battinto L. Batts Jr. “We’re excited to have Louis share his knowledge and experience with our students.”

Carr is also the founder of the Louis Carr Foundation (LCF), which promotes diversity in corporate America by providing paid internships to undergraduate students of color. The foundation has provided 270 paid internships, with 62 alumni securing full-time positions within the industry.

“I’m so excited to address the graduates at ASU on the day they receive the key to the stadium of life,” Carr said.

Carr works to inspire individuals striving for personal growth. He launched WayMaker, an initiative that aims to provide direction, wisdom and inspiration to individuals striving for personal growth and positive change. 

The initiative includes the quarterly WayMaker Journal, WayMaker Men’s Summit and The Blueprint Connect Podcast, which aims to bring together high-profile thought leaders to educate and empower Black men in finance, health, careers, relationships and entrepreneurship.

Carr has written two books: “Dirty Little Secrets” and “Little Black Book: Daily Motivations for Business and Personal Growth.” His writings cover essential topics such as leadership, culture, strategy, vision, success and diversity.

In addition to being inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame earlier this year, Carr was awarded the Chicago Advertising Federation Silver Medal Award. He was recognized by theboardiQ, an organization that promotes the creation of inclusive boards and executive teams for businesses, as a Top 100 Hall of Fame African American. Savoy Magazine named him one of the Most Influential Black Corporate Directors.

Carr has served on the boards of the International Radio and Television Society (IRTS), the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB), the Advertising Council and the American Advertising Federation.

Carr attended Drake University on a full athletic scholarship and earned a Bachelor of Arts in broadcast journalism. He also serves on Cedar Fair’s Board of Directors, Drake University’s Board of Trustees and The United States Track and Field Foundation (USATF) Board.

Written by Carly Boots