Admin Team

Victor V. Ramraj

Victor V. Ramraj

Director

Dr Victor V. Ramraj was appointed as CAPI Director in September 2017 and has been a Professor in the Faculty of Law and Chair in Asia-Pacific Legal Relations since 2014.

He draws upon his many years of research on the Asia-Pacific region, and his international leadership experience, including five years as Vice-Dean for Academic Affairs at the National University of Singapore Law School and a one-year secondment as Co-Director of the Centre for Transnational Legal Studies (CTLS) in London, England. His current research focuses on comparative constitutional law and transnational regulation, both with an emphasis on Asia. More

250-721-7024
Helen Lansdowne

Helen Lansdowne

Associate Director

Helen Lansdowne has a BA and an MA in Pacific and Asian Studies from UVic and has been with CAPI since late 1998. She brings expertise in rural China state-society relations. Her most recent area of study includes mainland Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on development and gender.

Her work at CAPI includes assisting with the Centre's ongoing project work and is in charge of overall administration of CAPI's programs. Helen Lansdowne also teaches courses on Southeast Asia and Developmental Theory in the Department of Pacific and Asian Studies at UVic and in the Department of Social Sciences at Camosun College.

250-721-7021
Mike Abe

Mike Abe

Project Manager, Landscapes of Injustice

250-721-7023

About

Michael Abe is the project manager for Landscapes of Injustice, a seven-year, multi-partner research project housed at CAPI exploring the forced dispossession of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. Mike isa Nikkei Sansei (third generation) and has been involved in the Japanese Canadian community in both Ontario and Victoria, maintaining close ties with Japan. He is past president of the Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society, serving as president for 8 terms over the last 11 years. He has been involved with the National Association of Japanese Canadians' Victoria chapter and was the editor of the Victoria Nikkei Forum from 2001-16. He worked in the tourism industry for over 20 years, marketing and promoting Victoria and British Columbia as a world class tourist destination and holds a B.Sc. degree from McMaster University.
Katie Dey

Katie Dey

Office Administrator

250-721-7020

About

Katie emigrated to Canada from Scotland after graduating from DJCAD (Dundee, Scotland) with a BFA in Fine Art Printmaking. She worked as a Master Printer in Vancouver for many years before becoming a Printmaking technician and discovered the joys of working for Universities.

A recent transplant to Victoria, she is delighted to be working at CAPI. When she’s not in the CAPI office she teaches printmaking and learns pottery.

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Robyn Fila

Internship Program Manager and QES-AS Project Manager

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250-721-7022

About

Robyn Fila is the internship program manager at the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives. Since 2010, Robyn has facilitated over 100 international internship placements for UVic students and graduates from across Canada in more than 20 countries. She is responsible for program and partnership development across the Asia-Pacific region, selecting, training and mentoring interns, and program monitoring and evaluation. CAPI’s international internship programs have focused on governance, development, education and migrants’ and refugee rights.

Robyn has an extensive background in experiential learning and curriculum development as it pertains to global and international education. She started her career in Indonesia in her work with street entrenched youth and continued on with social change movements focusing on reproductive rights and justice in the Czech Republic. She has an undergraduate degree from UVic in Geography and a MA in Adult Education and Global Change from Linkoping University in Sweden.

Dulma Karunarthna

Dulma Karunarthna

Program Coordinator

About

Dulma joined CAPI in the fall of 2021 as a program coordinator. Dr. Karunarathna was a Lecturer with the Department of Archaeology at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka from 2002-2021. She was a Commonwealth Scholar and completed her PhD at Newcastle University (UK) in 2015 with a focus on the "social archaeology of gender as depicted in visual art forms in South Asia." Her current research project is a cultural examination of a Sri Lankan palm-leaf manuscript that unveils the hidden history of color and the shared cultures, cultural diversity and socio-cultural geography of South and Southeast Asia.

Jon Woods

Jonathan Woods

Communications Officer

250-472-4654

About

Jon has an honours BSc in psychology from UVic and a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal. He has over ten years academic research experience across three universities (UVic, Concordia, and University College London) and a broad range of subjects and co-authored papers in refereed journals, including the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, and the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. He has exhibited his art works at galleries and fairs in Montreal. He returned to Victoria in 2016 and is excited to be back at UVic performing communications duties for CAPI.