About the Vice Chancellor and Chief Diversity Officer
Mariam Lam joined the UCR faculty in 2002 as a member of the Department of Comparative Literature and Languages with specialization in Southeast Asian studies, part of a Henry Luce Foundation and College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences initiative in Southeast Asian Studies. She is trained in comparative Asian and diasporic literatures, arts and cultures, postcolonial criticism, critical race and ethnic studies, globalization, gender and sexuality, translation, tourism, community politics, media and educational development, trauma and affect, minoritization and multiculturalism, la Francophonie, and academic disciplinarity. She was founding co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Vietnamese Studies for the University of California Press from 2005-2016, served as Director of Graduate Studies and Admissions Advisor for both Comparative Literature and the Southeast Asian Studies Interdisciplinary Research Program, later stepping into the position of Director of the Southeast Asian Studies Program from 2011-2016. As a faculty member, Lam has served as Vice Chair of the Academic Senate (2014-2016), Chair of the Committee on Committees and systemwide UCOC member (2012-2014), CHASS Executive Committee member (2009-2011), and in many other systemwide roles.
Professor Lam was president and a longtime board member of the Riverside Asian American Community Association, and has served on the boards of Thirdway Human Rights and Development, Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association, Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network, Global Village Foundation, and on the Grades 7‐12 Vietnamese American Curriculum Project for the Orange County Asian Pacific Islander Community Association. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in English, a Minor in Spanish, and Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Comparative Literature with Certificates of Emphasis in Feminist Studies and Asian American Studies from UC Irvine.
In her role as the Vice Chancellor and Chief Diversity Officer, Lam advises the leadership team, including the Chancellor, on all issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and sets the vision and course for positioning UCR as a national leader in reimagining diversity in higher education. She heads a wide range of initiatives and committees that address DEI, partners with campus and community stakeholders to advance UCR’s diversity mission, and represents UCR at the system, state and national levels.