Sandra Cate

Sandra Cate, anthropologist and folklorist, explores the material and expressive culture of Southeast Asia, in such diverse manifestations as Buddhist temple murals, Mien/Yao embroidery, and traffic jams in Bangkok.  Sandra teaches a broad range of cultural anthropology classes, with specific interests in global processes, art in cultural context, religion and ritual, consumption and exchange, conflict, gender and sexuality, tourism, and concepts of heritage. She has also written on the contemporary Asian art market and the changing conditions shaping festival and textile production. While a Fulbright scholar in Thailand, she collected T'ai textiles for the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology.

Sandra’s publications include Making Merit, Making Art: A Thai Temple in Wimbledon (2003), Buddhist Storytelling in Thailand and Laos: The Vessantara Jataka Scroll at the Asian Civilisations Museum (2013) and Building Buddhist Temples Abroad, forthcoming 2015.

A recipient of numerous prestigious awards, Sandra is a member of American Anthropological Association and the Association for Asian Studies. Trained at the University of California, Berkeley, she currently teaches anthropology at San Jose State University in Silicon Valley.

Bryce Beemer

Bryce Beemer has lived, worked, and researched in Southeast Asia for more than seven years, primarily in Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand. His first visit to Thailand was as an exchange student in 1990, and he travelled to Burma only a few years later. Bryce received his PhD in Southeast Asian and World History from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His research is on cultural exchange with a focus on art, religious practices, dance, theater, and music; and on pre-colonial warfare and slavery. He has published numerous articles on the topic of slavery and cultural exchange and received several awards for original and innovative research.

Bryce has a deep passion for the Southeast Asian arts, artisans, and performers and has incorporated interviews and art historical analysis into his work. He enjoys sharing this passion for Southeast Asian culture and history with others and has delivered lectures on these topics to audiences in the U.S., Thailand, Burma, and India.

Kathryn Selig Brown

Kathryn Selig Brown is a specialist in Buddhist and Hindu art and culture, with more than 30 years experience. She has taught at New York University and Columbia University, and has curated exhibitions for museums such as the Asia Society and the Rubin Museum of Art in NYC, where she was Curator. Dr. Selig Brown has given numerous public lectures including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Honolulu Academy of Art. She is the author of more than a dozen essays and articles as well as two books: Eternal Presence: Handprints and Footprints in Asian Art and Protecting Wisdom: Tibetan Book Covers from the MacLean Collection. She received her B.A. from Dartmouth and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Tibetan art history from the University of Michigan. Her passion for travel with people of all ages began with her first trip alone to Asia in 1987, when she spent eleven months photographing major architectural sites from Mumbai to Bali.