Talks & Presentations

Invited Talks 

EXTERNAL

Orange County Department of Education, Cambodian Studies Model Curriculum Jan 2025

Khmer Honorific Registers: Understanding Honorific Word-Choice in Khmer (San Jose, CA) [See presentation on Youtube at 1:57:45]

Brown University, Department of Anthropology Dec 2024

Voicing the Khmer Rouge: Communist Revolutionary or Cruel Torturer?

Orange County Department of Education, Cambodian Studies Model Curriculum Nov 2024

Khmer Honorific Registers: Understanding Honorific Word-Choice in Khmer (Long Beach, CA)

Orange County Department of Education, Cambodian Studies Model Curriculum May 2024

Language and Ethnicity. Virtual webinar on Southeast Asian languages and ethnicities; talk recorded and posted online to help future K-12 teachers build an ethnic studies curriculum 

University of California, San Diego, the Southern California Southeast Asian Studies May 2024

When Cambodians Don’t Know How to Talk to Monks: Buddhism, Language, and Respect

University of California, Davis, Cluster on Language Research May 2024

How Not to Talk to Monks: Dysfluency in the Buddhist Monk Register among Cambodians

University of California, Los Angeles, Center for Southeast Asian Studies Nov 2023

Cutting Family Ties: Disownment Announcements in Cambodia

Orange County Department of Education, Cambodian Studies Model Curriculum Jul 2023

Scholar talk on Khmer language to help K-12 curriculum writers develop Cambodian studies lesson plans

Stanford University, Department of Linguistics Sociolunch Brown Bag May 2023

When Cambodians Don’t Know How to Talk to Buddhist Monks

University of California, Santa Barbara, Department of Linguistics Oct 2022

Debates Surrounding Forms of Address between Adults and Children in Cambodia

University of California, Riverside, Department of Anthropology Jan 2022

“A word they used in the past”: Avoidance of Khmer’s Non-honorific Register and the Expansion of Moral Concern in Cambodia

Creating Connections Consortium's Virtual Summit April 2021

Disentangling the Language of Intimacy and Condescension in Cambodia

Northern Illinois University, Center for Southeast Asian Studies Friday Lecture February 2020

How Not to Talk to Monks in Cambodia: Khmer Honorifics and Language Change

University of Michigan & University of Puerto Rico Outreach Collaboration March 2019

San Juan, Puerto Rico

Where is “Home”? A Case study of Cambodian-American Immigration and Deportation

I created a pedagogical toolkit on the topic of Cambodian-American deportation and presented it to Puerto Rican educators who may use the lesson plan in their own classrooms. 

(Access Here. My lesson begins on page 105) 

(En español, mi lección comienza en la página 113) 

Creating Connections Consortium’s “Reimagining the Academy: Constructing Inclusive and Participatory Communities in Challenging Times,” Nov 2018

Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 

The Khmer Buddhist Monk Honorific Register: Language, Religion, and Identity in Cambodia

Khmer Rouge Effects and Aftereffects: Performance, Social Engagement, and Trauma as Legacies of Violence Jun 2015

Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Communist Language Ideology: Performing Communist Language under the Khmer Rouge

INTERNAL

Guest Lecturer, “Pronouns and Power” Spring Course June 2020

University of Michigan

Gave a Zoom guest lecture on the topic of “registers” and “honorific registers,” incorporating examples from English and Khmer. I also designed a small groupwork activity where students analyzed parodies of registers in the media.

International Institute Conference on Migration February 2020

University of Michigan

Deporting the Unsettled: From Cambodian Refugee Resettlement to Exiled Cambodian-Americans

Middle Eastern & North Africa – Southeast Asia (MENA-SEA) Teacher Program  February 2020

University of Michigan

Deportations of Cambodian-American refugees in the Aftermath of Genocide

Funded by U.S. Department of Education and the University of Michigan, I gave a pedagogical talk to 6 Michigan middle school and high school teachers in the year-long MENA-SEA Program, whose goal is to equip the teachers with knowledge about the Middle East and Southeast Asia so that they may return to the schools and diversify their curriculum. I was invited for their session, “Genocide, Historical Memory, and Justice in the Middle East and in Southeast Asia.” I lectured and provided potential lesson plans concerning the deportation of Cambodian-American refugees.

World History and Literature Initiative’s “Migration in World History and Literature” Jul 2018        

University of Michigan

Resettling and Deporting the Unsettled: The Cambodian-American Refugee Experience 

Funded by U.S. Department of Education and the University of Michigan, I gave a pedagogical lecture and provided lesson plan materials for Michigan middle school and high school teachers of world history and world literature on the topic of Southeast Asian-American refugees and the recent criminal deportation of Cambodian-Americans so that teachers may use the materials to diversify their curriculum

Guest Lecturer, Introduction to Southeast Asian Studies March 2019

University of Michigan

Presented on the experiences of Cambodian-American refugees, particularly the 1.5 generation who are being criminally deported to Cambodia

Conference Presentations

EXTERNAL

Society for Linguistic Anthropology 2025 Spring Conference May 2025

Five-minute Lightning Talk “Cutting Family Ties: Disownment Announcements in Cambodia”

Association for Asian Studies 2025 Annual Conference Mar 2025

Discussant for the panel “Cambodia in the World: Khmer Encounters with Others”

American Anthropological Association 123rd Annual Meeting Nov 2024

When Cruelty Fails to Translate in the Courtroom: Khmer to English interpretation at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal

The European Association for Southeast Asian Studies 13th Conference Jul 2024

Linguistic Honorifics in Cambodia: Language of Respect or Language of Inequality

American Anthropological Association 122nd Annual Meeting Nov 2023

Voicing the Khmer Rouge: Communist revolutionary or cruel torturer?

Canadian Council for Southeast Asian Studies 2023 Conference Oct 2023

Chair and Organizer of panel “Cambodian Dreams: Charting A New Path or Returning to a Golden Era?

Association for Asian Studies 2023 Annual Conference Mar 2023

Voicing of the Khmer Rouge

Conference of the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas Nov 2022

Maintaining Family Ties: Case Study of a Left Behind Woman in Hainan in the Mid-20th Century

The European Association for Southeast Asian Studies 12th Conference Jun 2022

Co-organizer of panel: “What's in a Claim? Making Family, Nation, and Territory in Southeast Asia”

Individual paper: Cutting Family Ties: announcements disowning kin in Cambodia

Society for Linguistic Anthropology 2020 Spring Conference Apr 2022 

University of Colorado, Boulder

“After the war, our traditions were destroyed” vs. "A word they used in the past": Competing discourses in Cambodia on time and progress

American Anthropological Association 120th Annual Meeting Nov 2021 

Baltimore, MD

From Cruel Superior to Uneducated Farmer: Khmer's Non-honorific Register and Stereotypes of the Unmodern

American Anthropological Association 118th Annual Meeting Nov 2019

Vancouver, Canada 

"Those who know less teach those who know nothing”: the legacy of the Khmer Rouge on the Khmer language

The Anthropology of Language in Mainland Southeast Asia Aug 2019

University of Sydney, Australia 

“Khmer has no grammar rules”: metapragmatic commentaries and linguistic anxiety in Cambodia

American Anthropological Association 117th Annual Meeting Nov 2018

San Jose, CA

Demanding a Code of Conduct and Language Standards for Cambodian Politicians

Michicagoan Linguistic Anthropology Grad Student Conference May 2018

University of Chicago

Did Jesus slap or sokut for our sins?: Language-use among Cambodian Christians

Society for Linguistic Anthropology Spring Meeting Mar 2018

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 

Linguistic Role Models amidst Cambodian Linguistic Anxiety

Southeast Asia Program’s Grad Student Conference Mar 2018

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 

“Khmer has no grammar rules”: metapragmatic commentary and linguistic anxiety in Cambodia

Khmer Rouge Effects and Aftereffects: Performance, Social Engagement, and Trauma as Legacies of Violence Mar 2015

Co-sponsored by Human Sciences Encounters in Phnom Penh and Center for Khmer Studies at the Royal University of Fine Arts, Phnom Penh, Cambodia 

Communist Language Ideology under the Khmer Rouge

School of Pacific and Asian Studies Grad Student Conference Apr 2013

University of Hawai’i at Mānoa

Khmer Rouge Language Policies – Performing Communist Language

Imagining Cambodia: Cambodian Studies ConferenceSep 2012

Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 

“I would like to announce that I am searching for…”: Cambodians in search of missing relatives

English Graduate Student Association Conference Mar 2012

Northeastern University, Boston, MA 

“Have You Seen My Family? – Cambodians in Search of Long Lost Relatives”

Graduate Academic Conference Mar 2012

Michigan State University, Lansing, MI 

The Gift of Sponsorship: Church Sponsorship of Cambodian Refugees

INTERNAL

Southeast Asian Studies Grad Student Conference Feb 2018

University of Michigan 

“Khmer has no grammar rules”: metapragmatic commentary and linguistic anxiety in Cambodia

Michicagoan Linguistic Anthropology Grad Student Conference May 2013

University of Michigan 

Communist Language Ideology: Performing Communist Language under the Khmer Rouge

Four Field Anthropology Grad Student Conference Mar 2013

University of Michigan 

Performing Communist Language under the Khmer Rouge

AGEP/Summer Institute Research Symposium Aug 2011

University of Michigan

Church Sponsorship of Cambodian Refugees in Michigan