Wednesday, January 29, 2025 | 5:00PM - 6:30PM | SOS B40 | RSVP
Please join us for the 10th annual East Asia Career Panel! The East Asia Career Panel is an annual event EASC organizes and is open to all undergraduate and graduate students interested in using East Asian language and area studies skills in their future professions and learning about the different career options available. Our impressive alumni panelists come from professions in fields such as law, art, entertainment, journalism, and federal government. Come listen to our USC Alumni discuss how they utilized their East Asian languages and area studies skills in their careers. The panel will be followed by a Q&A and networking opportunity. 

Panelists

Ayaka Kimura
Ayaka is a second year law student at LMU Loyola Law School. Last summer, she was a judicial extern at the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, for the Honorable Kim McLane Wardlaw. This summer, she will be a summer associate at a law firm in her hometown, Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. Prior to starting law school, she was a Registration and Collections intern at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and a gallery intern at L.A. Louver, a contemporary art gallery in Venice beach. She is passionate about art restitution, cultural heritage issues, and the intersection of law and art. At USC, Ayaka double-majored in Law, History and Culture and East Asian Area Studies. She was the inaugural student of the EAAS honors program and wrote her thesis on ūman ribu, the Japanese radical feminist movement of the 1970's. She speaks Japanese with native fluency, and has interned at a law firm in Osaka, Japan.

Dionee Simmons 

Dionee Simmons is a junior researcher at Interpret, where she conducts qualitative research on video games and technology through moderation and analysis of focus groups, interviews, and playtests. She joined Interpret as an Assistant Research Analyst after an internship following their time at USC. Calling San Diego and Las Vegas their homes, Dionee graduated from USC in 2024 with a B.A. in East Asian Area Studies and Global Studies as a QuestBridge Scholar, summa cum laude. As an undergraduate student, they were a two-time USC Korean Studies Undergraduate Research Fellow, co-founder of the Student Journal of Asian Studies at USC, and a USC Research Gateway Scholar, where she produced media and qualitative research on Korean cinema and television, webtoons, and boys' love fandom. She has also studied internationally at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, where she improved her Korean language skills. 

Rochelle Wong 

Rochelle Wong is an Assistant Special Agent in Charge for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, Office of Investigations. She leads a team of investigators who investigate fraud, waste, and abuse in federal healthcare programs. Prior to joining HHS-OIG, Rochelle worked as a paralegal at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Central District of California, in the major frauds unit, and before that, she was a pharmaceutical representative. Rochelle received a bachelor's degree in International Relations and East Asian Languages and Cultures.  

Please RSVP by Friday, January 24.