<div dir="ltr"><div>Very sad news from the University of Illinois. A huge loss to the field and to everyone who knew her. My condolences to her family, friends, and colleagues.</div><div><br></div><div>Aaron R. Miller</div><div>Assistant Director</div><div>UCLA Asia Institute</div><div><br></div><div>11286 Bunche Hall</div><div>Box 951487</div><div>Los Angeles, CA 90095-1487</div><div>(310) 825-0007</div><div><a href="mailto:armiller@international.ucla.edu">armiller@international.ucla.edu</a></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11pt">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:11pt"> Burklund, Sandy S [mailto:<a href="mailto:sandyb3@illinois.edu" target="_blank">sandyb3@illinois.edu</a>]
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<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, January 07, 2016 2:47 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:eaps-wb-l@listserv.illinois.edu" target="_blank">eaps-wb-l@listserv.illinois.edu</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Nancy Abelmann<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Dear Colleagues,<u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">It is with greatest sorrow that I share with you the news that Nancy Abelmann passed away on January 6, 2016. Nancy was a world-renowned anthropologist of Korea and Professor of Anthropology and East Asian Studies, with additional appointments
in Asian American Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies. <u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Nancy served as Director for the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies from 2005 to 2008. Under her stewardship, the Center grew from a collection of successful but independent programs into an integrated and comprehensive nexus for
East Asian and Asian interests across campus and the center of a vast network of scholars, students, and international visitors working on Asian topics. Nancy also had the vision to reach out to colleagues at Indiana University’s East Asian Studies Center
to form the partnership that has been the basis for our Joint National Resource Center in East Asian Studies, funded by the Department of Education and running steadily since she helped found it in 2006. As with all of Nancy’s endeavors, her directorship
of CEAPS was a continuous act of intellectual generosity. She created opportunities for faculty and students to collaborate, explore new avenues of joint research, and grow, here on campus, with our partner institutions at Indiana, and abroad. Her tenure
as Director brought robust and lively programming to the Center, including brown-bag lectures where faculty and advanced graduate students could share ideas; lecture series featuring prominent scholars from other institutions; and scholarships supporting students
in their study of East Asian cultures and languages. <u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Nancy’s contributions to our community reached far beyond the Center. Her programmatic initiatives and personal efforts in support of colleagues as Associate Vice Chancellor of Research have enabled many individual scholars and research
teams to formulate proposals that won them prestigious grant support, support that has already resulted in monographs, seminars, and long-term research projects. In addition to her robust individual research profile, she also helped found the Ethnography
of the University Initiative in 2003, and she served as co-director of The American University Meets the Pacific Century project and was co-principal investigator on The Korean Family in Comparative Perspective project, supported by the Academy of Korean Studies.
In all of her endeavors, she reached out to colleagues and students across campus, delighting in creating opportunities for all of us to examine our work from new perspectives and learn from each other as we created more solid and exciting research. She was
beloved as a mentor to graduate students in Anthropology and Korean/East Asian Studies, and her numerous advisees represent more than a generation of top-ranking Koreanists around the world.
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<p class="MsoNormal">The light that is extinguished with Nancy’s passing burned brighter and warmer than those around it. Her students, her projects, and the projects of others that she nurtured are testaments to her selfless devotion to her field and the
pursuit of intellectual excellence. As we honor her legacy and strive to follow her example, we mourn the loss of our irreplaceable colleague, mentor, and friend. The Center will be thinking about a way to celebrate her legacy in the coming year, and we
extend our condolences to her family and all those she touched. <u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Elizabeth Oyler, Director<u></u><u></u></p>
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