Amid a concerning lack of representation on UC Berkeley’s campus, where there is not a single Pacific Islander faculty member, the Critical Pacific Islands Studies Collective, or CPISC works to support and expand Pacific Islander, or PI, visibility in academia.
CPISC began in 2022 as a research group focused specifically on the Marianas Islands. Sophia Perez, a first year Ph.D. student in geography, was looking for help with her work focused on U.S. military presence in the Marianas. She put up a flyer, and received responses from Nate Tilton, a Ph.D. student in cultural anthropology, and Kieren Rudge, a Ph.D. student in environmental science, policy and management.
“Oftentimes, in each of our departments, you can feel very alone,” Tilton said. “I’ve been at the university for a long time and often it feels like I’m the only person focused on the Pacific in (anthropology).” Having a space to come together has been helpful in terms of providing each other with support, resources and most of all camaraderie…