The Center for Southeast Asian Coastal Interactions (SEACoast) was established in October 2019 through a generous, one-time gift from the Henry Luce Foundation. Since then, SEACoast has provided support to hire faculty, and to fund graduate student fellowships, fieldwork, language training, interdisciplinary seminars, undergraduate workshops, postdoctoral fellowship, as well as graduate school application workshops for students from Southeast Asia (testimonials below). SEACoast is an incubation space for innovative research that bridges regional and disciplinary boundaries—developing social and ecological insights beyond traditional definitions of coastlines and Southeast Asia.

This spring, we are excited to launch a new fundraising campaign, "California-Southeast Asia: Forging Connections, Sustainable Journeys," that will build bridges between Southeast Asia (SEA), the SEA diaspora, and UCSC to promote sustainability research in the region. Southeast Asian coasts are among the most biologically and culturally rich in the world. However, they face numerous challenges due to environmental degradation, climate change, and other obstacles. Our aim is to build connections between scholars, students, and communities to develop sustainable solutions for the future.

We have seen firsthand that students from SEA often face financial barriers when pursuing graduate education in the US. To address this issue, we offer a graduate workshop that provides SEA students with the skills and knowledge they need to apply to US graduate schools. With your support, we will be able to subsidize application and English language testing fees to ensure that students have the opportunity to apply, regardless of their financial circumstances.

Diverse perspectives are crucial in the design and implementation of critical sustainability research. UCSC has a thriving community of SEA diaspora undergraduate groups with strong environmental interests that span generations and space. A new SEACoast initiative, the Heritage Journey Award, will support SEA diaspora undergraduates who wish to explore the environmental heritage and/or sustainability practices in areas they identify as being part of their families' histories. The award will fund a modest research trip and pair awardees with SEACoast-affiliated mentors in the planning of their travel. At the end of their journeys, awardees will share their experiences through an in-person presentation and a photo-testimonial on the SEACoast website. With your contributions, we can empower a new generation of scholars dedicated to exploring Southeast Asia's environmental heritage and sustainable futures.

Join us in creating sustainable futures

Together, we can make a real impact. We have created the following fundraising goals. Every donation, no matter how big or small, can make a difference:

$0: Application Workshop

We are committed to organizing an online workshop in Fall 2023 to provide SEA prospective students with the know-how to apply to graduate schools in the US, including one-on-one mentorship with SEACoast-affiliated scholars. 

$200: Application Seed Award

With this total donation, we can help cover the costs of application fees and/or TOEFL exams for one SEA prospective student interested in sustainability studies who otherwise might not have the financial means to pursue graduate studies in the US.

$1,500: Heritage Journey Award

With this total donation, we can fund a round-trip California-SEA ticket for one UCSC diaspora student to embark on a heritage journey focusing on environmental issues.

$3,000: Two Heritage Journey Awards

This amount will allow us to fund two round-trip tickets for two diaspora students to embark on a heritage journey to Southeast Asia, providing them with a unique and enriching educational experience.

$5,000: Two Heritage Journey Awards and Ten Application Seed Awards 

With this total donation, we will support all of the fundraising goals listed above and make a significant impact on the Center's efforts to forge sustainable connections between California and Southeast Asia. This includes 10 Application Seed Awards for SEA prospective students and 2 Heritage Journey Awards for UCSC students. 

$50,000: All of the above AND Fellowship for a Southeast Asian Doctoral Student

In addition to Application Seed Awards and Heritage Journey Awards, the Center will be able to support a Southeast Asian doctoral student in pursuing their academic goals, helping to build a more diverse and inclusive academic community at UCSC.

With your generous contributions, we can make these goals a reality and support emerging scholars from Southeast Asia and the Southeast Asian diaspora to create a more sustainable future for our communities.

SEACoast: Empowering Scholars and Shaping Research

Inditian Latifa (Anthropology) in Aceh Besar
Thanks to the support I received from the SJSRF I was able to conduct some preliminary fieldwork in northwest Aceh, Indonesia. It helped me develop my research project and provided me with the opportunity to connect with researchers at Syiah Kuala University and learn Acehnese from a local instructor.

Rafid Shidqi (Coastal Science & Policy) tagging a thresher shark for observations. Rafid leads a Thresher Shark conservation project in Indonesia.
I would like to express deep gratitude for your support through the UCSC SEACoast Junior Scholar this year [2021]. I gave my final master's presentation yesterday and officially graduated from UC Santa Cruz Coastal Science and Policy Graduate Program. I have also submitted the final capstone report, which partly was supported by SEACoast Junior Scholar.

Natalie Ng (Anthropology) on the Mekong
The SJSRF enabled me to begin studying Lao which is critical to my fieldwork on infrastructure development in northern Laos. I also received funding to conduct preliminary research in Northeast Thailand while the border to Laos was closed during the COVID lockdown.

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Niomi Pridina (Coastal Science & Policy): Lamakera, a small fishing community located in East Flores, Indonesia, was considered one of the most productive mobulid ray hunting communities globally. This concern triggered a need to collaborate between conservationists, the local government, and NGOs to address Lamakera’s unsustainable hunting of mobulid rays. This coalition had promoted a mixed approach to the fishers’ community in Lamakera by implementing patrol and enforcement of the manta decree and providing alternative livelihood options
[...]
The Junior Scholar Research Funds helped me conduct meetings with the stakeholders involved in developing this alternative livelihood. This sponsorship made it possible for me to engage with them to design the social-economic surveys that will be used during the interview with the community who are impacted by this alternative livelihood. We hope to understand how practical this alternative livelihood approach has been to the community and steps that could be implemented to leverage their livelihood and well-being.”

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Philip Conklin (History of Consciousness) in Baguio
The SJSRF helped fund my participation in the Southeast Asian Summer Studies Institute through the University of Wisconsin to study the Filipino language which is vital to my research.

Zahirah Suhaimi (Anthropology) filtering chlorophyll from water in the Johor Straits
The Junior Scholar Research Fellowship allowed me to carry out fieldwork in the Johor Straits with my collaborators in Singapore and Malaysia in 2021. In 2022, I also received funding to carry out follow-up research in field sites that were critical to my research but inaccessible during the COVID travel lockdown.