UCLA officials appointed an Asian American studies professor as vice provost of the Institute of American Cultures.
David K. Yoo will begin his term Sept. 1, replacing Belinda Tucker who stepped down in July, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh announced Thursday.
Yoo has been a professor at UCLA since 2010, Waugh said in the statement. He was appointed director of the Asian American Studies Center in 2010.
As vice provost, Yoo will oversee the institute, which houses four ethnic studies centers, supervise the Visiting Scholars program and conduct research on the peoples and cultures of America, Yoo said.
Yoo previously worked for the Korean American Scholarship Foundation and now serves on the American Studies Committee’s ethnic studies standing committee, according to Waugh’s statement. Yoo has also served as chair of the history department at Claremont McKenna College, where he studied political science as an undergraduate.
He has written several books and articles about topics such as religion and Korean-American and Japanese-American history, according to Yoo’s faculty page.
Tucker was appointed as the institute’s first vice provost in 2011. She will return to being a full-time psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences faculty member after spending this year on sabbatical leave, Waugh said an announcement in March. As vice provost of the institute, Tucker recruited new faculty, helped improve funding and established diversity initiatives on campus.