Education

  • Ph.D., Art History, University of California, Los Angeles
  • MA, Art History, University of California, Los Angeles
  • BA, Art History, University of California, Berkeley
  • UC Education Abroad Program (UCEAP), American University of Paris

Bio/Affiliation

Mya Chau is a Lecturer in the Department of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California. She taught in the Departments of Asian Studies, Asian Pacific American Studies and Art History at Loyola Marymount University, Chapman University and University of California (UCLA). She previously worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Getty Research Institute and Getty Villa. 

Her research examines visual culture and international cultural exchanges in India, China and Southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam and Cambodia. In 2015, she was a Blakemore Freeman Fellow and recipient of the 2019 Women of Vision Award. Mya has conducted fieldwork in Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, France and Singapore. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Blakemore Foundation and UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies. 

 

Portrait of Mya Chau

Awards / Honors

  • Delphi Award, Loyola Marymount University, 2026
  • Curricular Innovation Grant, Otis College of Art and Design, 2025
  • Smarthistory: The Center for Public Art History — Fellow for Southeast Asian Art, 2023
  • IFLE Dissertation Research Fellow, UCLA Center of Southeast Asian Studies, 2020
  • Edward A. Dickson History of Art Fellow, UCLA, 2019
  • Eugene V. Cota Robles Fellow, UCLA, 2012-2018
  • Blakemore Freeman Fellow, Blakemore Foundation, 2015
  • FLAS Academic Year Fellow, UCLA Center of Southeast Asian Studies, 2013-2015
  • Library Prize for Undergraduate Research, UC Berkeley, 2008
  • McNair Scholar (U.S. Department of Education Trio Program), 2006
  • Cal Opportunity Scholar, UC Berkeley, 2004-2008

Publications

  • 2025. Chau, M., “Four Dancers,” “Laksmi,” and “Indra on Airavata,” From Red River to the Mekong Delta, Masterpieces of the History Museum – Ho Chi Minh City, Eds. Peter Sharrock, Trần Ky Phương, Pierre Baptiste and Tuấn Hoàng Anh, River Books 
  • 2022. Chau, M., “The Colossal Trà Kiệu Ramāyāna Pedestal and its Relationship to Courtly Culture in Cambodia, East Java, and Champa,” The Creative South: The Great Religious Art Innovations of Mediaeval Maritime Asia. Eds. Peter Sharrock and Andrea Acri, Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, p. 305-333
  • 2022. Chau, M., “Angkor Wat,” World Architecture and Society: From Stonehenge to One World Trade, Ed. Peter Louis Bonfitto ABC-CLIO Press, p. 527-532
  • 2014. Chau, M., “Interrelationships in South and Southeast Asian Art: Cham Female Iconography, Buddhist Inscriptions and the Buddha Image,” Explorations: a Graduate Student Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Fall, Volume 12, p. 12-31
  • 2008. Chau, M., “The Cylindrical Warka Vase and Cylinder Seals: Repetition and Reference as Visual Strategies of Communication in the Ancient Near East,” Berkeley McNair Research Journal, Volume 15, p. 1-18
  • 2007. Chau, M., “Reinforced Ideologies: Repetitive Rhythm and Doubled Images in Mesopotamian Art,” Journal of Associated Graduates of Near Eastern Studies, Volume 13.1, p. 29-52