1600 Woodland Road
Abington, PA 19001
Biography
Elizabeth Kopacz is an interdisciplinary ethnic studies scholar with research interests in U.S. empire and transpacific violence, Korean transnational adoption, race, kinship, feminist epistemologies, and histories of science and technology. Her first book project, "Navigating the Unknowable: Transnational Adoption, Genetic Kinship, and the Community Archive," is a multi-scalar exploration of how transnational, transracial Korean adoptees utilize paperwork, popular science, and genetic technologies to navigate material and affective absences produced by the violence of U.S. empire.
Her work has been supported by the American Association of University Women Dissertation Fellowship, the UC Riverside Graduate Research Mentorship Program, and the Social Science Research Council Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship. In addition to her scholarship, Elizabeth is committed to making academic knowledge accessible to larger audiences through public humanities work. At UCLA, she directed a short film, Who is Park Joo Young?, that examined Korean adoption, kinship, and DNA. Most recently, she worked as a Documentary Research Assistant for the five-part Asian Americans series that aired on PBS in May 2020.
Research Interests
Race and ethnicity, Asian American cultural studies, Korean transnational and transracial adoption, kinship, feminist science and technology studies.
Education
Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies, UC Riverside
M.A. in Asian American Studies, UCLA
B.A. in Earth Systems, Environment, and Society, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign