The UCLA Asian American Studies Center and Department is extremely pleased to announce the appointment of Associate Professor Lisa Uperesa as the holder of the Morgan and Helen Chu Endowed Chair in Asian American Studies, starting the 2024-25 academic year, along with her appointment in the Department of Asian American Studies.

Professor Uperesa works with Pacific Islander communities to understand migrations, movement and mobility, and how they shape lives, identities, families, cultures, and futures. Her past research focused on the rise of American football in Samoan communities and the navigation of sport as both labor and tautua (service). Her current research projects include the globalization of indigenous Pacific cultural forms through sporting routes and digital platforms, Native mascots in Indigenous and multi-ethnic communities, decolonial and culturally sustaining pedagogies, and mapping Pacific research methodologies. She previously served as Head of Pacific Studies and co-Head of School for Te Wananga o Waipapa | the School of Maori Studies and Pacific Studies at Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland. She has also had teaching and research appointments in Ethnic Studies and Sociology at University of Hawai`i at Manoa and in Anthropology at Columbia University, The New School for Social Research, and Hoftstra University. She received her PhD in Anthropology at Columbia University and her BA in Ethnic Studies and Sociology at UC Berkeley.

Professor Uperesa is the daughter of one of the first Samoans to play in the CFL and NFL and author of the award-winning Gridiron Capital: How American Football Became a Samoan Game (Duke University Press, 2022), a loving and detailed ethnography revealing the connections between immigration and sports in our transnational world. The book charts the cultural and social dynamics that have made football so central to Samoan communities. It also offers insights into the social and physical costs of pursuing a football career, the structures that compel Pacific Islander youth toward athletic labor, and the possibilities for safeguarding their health and wellbeing in the future.

"With appreciation for the significant contribution of Morgan and Helen Chu and the work it will continue to enable here at UCLA, I am honored to hold the Chu Endowed Chair," said Professor Uperesa. She added, "I also want to recognize the efforts of students, faculty, staff, and administrators whose work made my hire in Asian American Studies possible. It is an auspicious time to be joining the faculty, and I look forward to working with our campus and wider communities in the years to come to grow and shape the vision for Pacific Studies at UCLA."

Morgan and Helen Chu are both UCLA alumni and longtime and generous supporters of the Center. A leading intellectual property attorney, Morgan Chu is a recipient of the UCLA Medal in 2007, the highest honor bestowed by the university. He received a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from UCLA, a M.S.L. from Yale, and a J.D. from Harvard, and has been named one of the "Top Ten Trial Lawyers" in the nation. Helen Chu served for many years as an elementary school teacher and along with Morgan is among the founders of the Center.

"We are delighted to welcome Professor Uperesa to UCLA," commented Morgan and Helen Chu," and we are excited that the Chu Endowed Chair will support her research in Pacific Studies and the significant transformations she is making in the field of Indigenous Studies and Ethnic Studies."

Please join us along with the faculty, staff, and students of the Asian American Studies Center and Department in welcoming Professor Uperesa to UCLA and in congratulating her as the new Morgan and Helen Chu Endowed Chair of Asian American Studies!