Center for Asian American Media

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Staff

Stephen Gong is the Executive Director of the Center for Asian American Media. Stephen joined CAAM after working for 18 years at the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, most recently as Deputy Director. Previously, he held positions at the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C. He has been a lecturer in the Asian American Studies program at UC Berkeley, where he developed and taught a course on the history of Asian American media.

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Vicci Ho is the Assistant Festival Director at the Center for Asian American Media. She was born in Hong Kong and was raised in Sydney, Australia, a city she still calls home. After completing her B.A. in Film Studies and History at the University of New South Wales, she returned to Hong Kong in 2004 and worked on several film and TV productions, as well as the Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, where she become the director in 2006. In her spare time Vicci can be seen obsessing over the latest teenage TV shows, on the search for the perfect bowl of ramen and attempting to dance at gigs. She still dreams of forming an Italo Disco band and becoming a writer for Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

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Shelly Kim is the Member Services and Donations Manager for the Center for Asian American Media, where she oversees the CAAM membership program and member-related special events. Because of her previous work as CAAM’s Receptionist, Distribution Assistant and Office Manager, Shelly is often referred to as the CAAM Guru. A Bay Area native, she holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mass Communication from UC Berkeley and is an avid Giants and Warriors fan. Shelly has mastered the five-star Sudoku puzzle and is working toward completing the Chronicle’s Saturday six-star puzzle.

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Christine Kwon is Program and Publications Manager at the Center for Asian American Media. Born in San Francisco, Christine grew up in Fremont and attended Gomes Elementary where she majored in tetherball and foursquare. She also studied literature and film at UC San Diego and the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The youngest of four, Christine is also the shortest in her family, a lifelong motif that many speculate led to her famous tagline, “I get no respect.” After trying her hand as a futbol player, a reporter and finally a barista, she was inspired by many friends and teachers to pursue positive political work through the arts.

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Michella Rivera-Gravage is currently the Director of Digital Media at the Center For Asian American Media. In 2006 she earned her MFA in Digital Art/New Media from the University of California, Santa Cruz, specializing in social and interactive media. Before coming to UC Santa Cruz, she earned a BA in Rhetoric and Women Studies at UC Berkeley. In addition to being the Director of Digital Media, she is an artist that brings together both old and new media to tell personal and public stories. Her work has been exhibited in the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, the VC Filmfest in Los Angeles, the MIX Festival in New York, and the Santa Cruz Digital Arts New Media Festival. Her poetry is published in Babaylan: An Anthology of Filipina and Filipina American Writers, Screaming Monkeys: Critiques of Asian American Images, and the online journal “Babaylan Speaks.”

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Rina Mehta serves as Development Director for the Center for Asian American Media. She comes to the organization with over 10 years of experience fundraising for non-profits. She has worked to raise funds from foundations, corporations and individuals for several of the Bay Area’s leading health and arts non-profits. Most recently, she worked with the Chitresh Das Dance Company to establish their individual donor program, raising over $100,000 (20% of the organization’s budget) and bringing 170 new donors to the organization in one year. Rina has an avid interest in building sustainable funding structures for nonprofits and received her undergraduate and postgraduate education at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Misa Oyama grew up in Cupertino, studied literature and film at Yale, and received a Ph.D. in English with an emphasis in Film Studies from UC Berkeley. As a lecturer at Berkeley, she has taught seminars on Asian American melodrama and modern horror. In her spare time, she enjoys baking as well as watching Six Feet Under and musicals no one else wants to see, except hopefully her nephews when they are old enough.

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Ellen Park is the Media Fund Associate for CAAM. She was born in Chicago, and lived in South Dakota and Ohio before moving to New Jersey, prompting her to wonder ever afterwards “why oh why oh why oh did I ever leave Ohio?” After attending Smith College in Massachusetts and living in New York, Ellen moved to San Francisco where she worked as a bartender, music promoter, and as a crisis intake counselor with SFWAR, a non-profit sexual assault advocacy group, before joining CAAM. In her spare time, Ellen suspects (hopes) she might be the 5th Cylon and ponders over whatever happened to Dale Cooper and Bob.

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Frances Pomperada is the Development Associate at the Center for Asian American Media. Born a military “brat,” she lived in several places in the US and overseas, including Spain, Washington D.C., and Arkansas, finally moving to the Bay Area in 2003. Before joining CAAM, she earned a B.A. in Art History and minor in City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley and was culturally and politically active in the Pilipino community on campus. Frances also worked and volunteered at various museums and non-profit arts organizations in Berkeley and San Francisco. She firmly believes in the transformational power of the arts and its impact in sustaining culture and building vibrant communities.

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Nani Ratnawati is the Office Manager at the Center for Asian American Media.She was born and raised in Bandung, Indonesia, and in 1998 moved to San Francisco. She earned an M.A. in Anthropology and a B.A. in English Literature and Language Studies. Nani is also a reading/writing tutor (in English and Indonesian), a poetry and personal essay writer, and an active attendee of Bay Area arts, cultural, and community events. Playing Mexican Train dominoes, Apples to Apples, or Scrabble are some of her favorite activities.

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Sapana Sakya is Media Fund Director at the Center for Asian American Media where she manages CPB funding initiatives and supports independent filmmakers. Sapana’s background is in independent documentary and journalism. She produced and directed, “Daughters of Everest”, an award winning film about the first Nepali women’s Everest expedition. Her other works include “Oklahoma Home”, about two Filipino doctors living and working in rural Oklahoma, part of the series, “Searching for Asian America”. She also produced and directed, “Red White Blue November” a portrait of a Hmong American family from Fresno, California.

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Kar Yin Tham is the Administrative Director. For over a decade, Kar Yin worked in the field of youth development, developing programs and managing organizations. Three years ago, she began a journey towards independent filmmaking. Armed with a strong belief in “art as the soul of humanity,” she’s been writing, producing, and editing ever since. Kar Yin has worked on documentaries and narratives here and in her home country, Malaysia.

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Nicole Tse is the Educational Distribution Manager for the Center for Asian American Media, overseeing the business operations, fulfillment, and outreach of educational films and documentaries to colleges/universities, K-12 schools, libraries, and community groups across the country and internationally. Nicole holds a BA in Sociology from UCLA and a MA in Broadcasting from SFSU. A filmmaker in her spare time, previous films she has worked on have screened at the SF International Asian American Film Festival, SF International Film Festival, and Toronto Film Festival among others.

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Chi-hui Yang is the Festival Director at the Center for Asian American Media, which produces the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. Chi-hui is a graduate of Stanford University and the founder of the Stanford Asian American Performing Arts Series. He has written about culture, music and film for Spin, Giant Robot, and other magazines and on-line outlets and his curated film programs have been screened at venues and festivals nationwide, including the Seattle International Film Festival and Minneapolis’ Sound Unseen Festival.

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Donald Young is Director of Programs for the Center for Asian American Media (formerly NAATA). Donald has supervised the national broadcasts of over 100 award-winning programs. Highlights include Academy Award-winner “Visas and Virtue,” Academy Award-nominated “Daughter From Danang,” and Emmy Award-winner “A.K.A. Don Bonus.” As a producer, Donald’s most recent production was “Searching for Asian America,” which aired nationally on PBS in May 2004. “Searching for Asian America” was called “Engaging, smart, and insightful… Grade A” by Entertainment Weekly and “Exceptional” by the Christian Science Monitor. Donald has taught film at the University of California, Davis and the University of Hawaii, Manoa, and serves on the Boards of the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC) and the California Council for the Humanities.