International Student Conferences (ISC), the leading U.S. organization in student-run, cross-cultural programs in Japan and Korea, announced that Dr. Franklin Odo has been selected as Senior Advisor, effective May 21, 2010.
 
Franklin Odo retired as Founding Director of the Smithsonian Institution's Asian Pacific American (APA) Program in January 2010. He served in that capacity since its inception in 1997. Previously, he was Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Hawai’i and Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Hunter College, and Princeton and Columbia Universities in the 1990s. He edited the Columbia Documentary History of the Asian American Experience, published by Columbia University Press in 2002. No Sword to Bury: Japanese Americans in Hawai’i during WWII was published by Temple University Press in 2004. Dr. Odo was guest editor of a special issue on APA cultural institutions in AAPI Nexus in 2008, in a series published by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. Dr. Odo retired to complete a book on Japanese immigrant folk songs from Hawaii’s sugar plantations. He frequently lectures to various groups and consults on several projects, including one involving the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation. Dr. Odo received his M.A. in East Asia Regional Studies from Harvard and his Ph.D. in Japanese History from Princeton.

ISC’s prestigious flagship program, the Japan-America Student Conference (JASC), founded by students in 1934, brings together 36 American and 36 Japanese students each year for a month of living, traveling, and studying together. In 2008, ISC launched the Korea-America Student Conference (KASC) using the successful Japan model. This summer marks the 62nd Japan-America Student Conference and the 3rd Korea-America Student Conference. For more information please visit www.iscdc.org.