Aaron Su, sixth-year Anthropology graduate student, has accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Anthropology offer at Colorado College, a selective liberal arts institution, to begin in Fall 2025.

Through 21 months of ethnographic research, Su’s dissertation examines the ambivalent rollout of “participatory design” programs in Taiwan, as the government has aimed to collaborate with rural Indigenous communities in the making of new inclusionary medical and agricultural technologies. While Taiwan hopes to increase Indigenous life expectancies and agricultural yields in pursuit of national “self-sufficiency,” these programs are coming into conflict with local understandings of self-determination and futurity. 

Su will defend his dissertation, “Settler Democracy: Indigenous Self-Sufficiency and the Limits of Participation in Taiwan,” on Tuesday, April 29th, 2025 at 12pm. His co-advisors are João Biehl and Carolyn Rouse.

 Congratulations, Aaron!