Harry Mok

I’ve been published in a variety of newspapers, magazines and Web sites through my jobs and internships. Here’s a selection of stories and columns available on the Web and in PDF form:

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Green building hits major milestone: A new lab on the UCLA campus is more than just a place for cutting-edge research into paraplegia and cancer: It is the 100th green-certified facility in the UC system. Story and audio slide show.

Seeding innovation: Student farms at UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz have evovled into groundbreaking sustainable agriculture education and research programs. Story and audio slide show, blog post

UC sports facilities score with sustainability: March madness came early to UC Berkeley’s Haas Pavilion. No, it wasn’t a bracket-busting basketball upset. It was trying to operate an 11,871-seat arena as a zero-waste facility.

Talking through conflict resolution: UC explores restorative justice in improving campus climate

Smarter power: As the nation’s power system ages and grows insufficient, UC researchers are building a smarter, greener electric grid for the future.

UC center explores race in 21st century: The Center for New Racial Studies connects researchers examining a wide variety of issues linked to race, including class, ethnicity, gender and immigration status.

Putting the crown on solar power: Someday, solar power will provide all our energy. Scientists at UC Solar are helping to make that day come true.

Campuses target workplace practices to limit waste: Formal “green office” programs on several campuses provide framework for boosting sustainability.

Centralizing UC’s computer servers could lower costs: System-wide strategy to conserve energy and help UC reach its ambitious goals for cutting carbon emissions.

Building a green lab: Making research labs more sustainable can help UC campuses to cut energy use and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Green crusader: A lab researcher’s campaign to reuse, recycle and reduce draws national acclaim.

Self-imposed fees support sustainability: Students at seven UC campuses charge themselves extra to support green programs.

Saving green: Energy efficiency projects save UC $21 million per year

Green advocates: Students inspire UC’s sustainability policies. Story and slide show.

Helping hands: UC volunteers on all 10 campuses pitch in to help their communities. Story and slide show

Transfer paths lead to UC: More students use community college to launch their education. Story and audio slide show.

Campus climate assessment to address tolerance: UC plans to conduct a first-ever comprehensive systemwide campus climate assessment as part of its effort to foster an environment that’s inclusive and tolerant.

Former student regent works to improve campus climate: Jesse Bernal didn’t miss a beat in moving from student regent to his new job as interim university diversity coordinator for the UC system. “It’s really an extension of my work as student regent,” Bernal said.

Schoolteachers hone their science skills: The University of California-affiliated national laboratories host programs designed to give middle and high school teachers hands-on research experience. Story and video.

Social network fuels ride sharing: Zimride helps connect UC drivers and passengers while cutting carbon footprint of campuses. Story and video.

UC undergraduate researchers: Students describe the hands-on research experience they receive in a audio slide-show presentation. I took some of the photos, recorded some of the interviews and worked to put the shows together.

UC wins California Environmental Leadership Award: Global Green USA honors the University of California for the environmental commitment.

Partnerships can fuel sustainability research, economy: UC-industry partnerships further research on emission-reduction, alternative fuels and energy efficiencies, they can also create jobs.

Campuses expanding sustainable foodservice: UC initiatives set goals for using products from organic or local sources, environmentally friendly practices and education on sustainability issues.

UC’s sustainability policy helps cut carbon footprint, energy bills: Students inspired the University of California to adopt a sustainability policy in 2003 and launch the greening of UC’s campuses.

UC campuses expand assistance for former foster kids: About 150 former foster youth enter UC each fall as new students and in recent years university support for them has increased.

UC awards honorary degrees: Japanese American students at UC who were interned during World War II and couldn’t complete their studies are highlighted in this multimedia presentation. I conducted video interviews with two honorees and helped coordinate the project.

Post-doc program encourages diversity: Wayne Yang says he probably wouldn’t be a professor if it weren’t for the UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.

Policies must offset budget’s toll on diversity: The University of California must develop innovative policies to offset the effect deep budget cuts may have on efforts to foster diversity among UC’s students, faculty and staff.

UC campuses mount defense agains H1N1: All UC campuses are publicizing health guidelines and enacting measures to care for students who have flu symptoms.

State of Drought

UC water wonks help shape state’s future: With no uniform distribution system and with global warming and population growth stretching water supply, California is at a breaking point, many researchers say.

Climate change stresses water supply, ecosystems: Global warming and an insatiable thirst driven by population growth are conspiring to put California’s water sources and the ecosystems that depend on them at risk.

Our University

It’s for the birds: Glenn Stewart, coordinator of the Predatory Bird Research Group, often travels with a peregrine falcon on his arm, especially when visiting schools.

Student Regents work on access, affordability: UC Santa Barbara graduate student Jesse Bernal and UC Irvine junior Jesse Cheng bring the student perspective to university policymaking.

Your University

UC opens doors for more transfer students: UC wants to attract more community college transfers as a way to reduce the costs for greater numbers of students and to increase access to four-year universities for underrepresented groups.

UC’s 4-H programs grow from farms to urban neighborhoods: Go to almost any county fair, and youngsters from 4-H will be there, exhibiting their cows, pigs, sheep and other livestock. You might not expect to see them at an airport.

HYPHEN MAGAZINE

Blog Read my entries.

Sex Education: Porn star Hung Lo wants to empower Asian American men: One man is taking the task of debunking these stereotypes head-on, one video at a time.

Race to Space: Asian Americans in ‘Star Trek’s’ final frontier: Science fiction classic’s reputation for diversity maybe suspect.

Growing up with gai lan Making a path to the American dream in the dirt (PDF): A first-person account of growing up on a Chinese vegetable farm.

SALON

Yellow porn (warning: rated R): In the U.S. adult film industry, Asian women are a sexual fetish and Asian men are almost completely absent. Professor Darrell Hamamoto wants to change that by producing skin flicks with Asian male stars.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Bay Area section

Getting teens, parents on the same wavelength: Radio program helps Chinese American teens bridge communication, cultural gap with parents.

Finding roots in China’s soil Chinese Americans from the Bay Area visit the villages of their ancestors in genealogy program.

Datebook section (backpage column)

Pan-Asian energy reviving Japantown: In some ways, Japantown is Japantown in name only. Most of the Japanese American (and many African American) residents were forced out by redevelopment during the 1960s and 1970s and never came back. Japantown’s Japanese community may never recover, but the area’s recent rebirth has a very pan-Asian mix.

Open Forum section

Tears of sadness, relief over Mineta’s nomination: It was Norm Mineta’s smiling face on the front page of the newspaper that brought it out of me. He was picked by President Clinton to be commerce secretary, making him the first Asian American nominated for a Cabinet post. The first ever. I cried. Tears and everything, something I hadn’t done since my father died.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

USA Today

On the streets of San Francisco, a personal crusade to outline tragedy (PDF): They look like the ghostly outlines of crime victims, and in a way they are. Wherever the city’s streets have been marked by tragedy, Ken Kelton marks them over again, spray painting the silhouettes of crumpled pedestrians who’ve been hit and killed by cars.

Seattle Times

Chinese Americans’ journey to success: Fred Lau always wanted to be a San Francisco police officer. He wanted the job so badly he literally hung upside down to try and stretch to get past the 5-foot-7 height requirement. It didn’t work. What did work was pressure from civil rights groups to drop the height requirement. Lau became the city’s fifth Asian American officer in 1971. He rose to become chief, and his career reflects a century of change for Chinese Americans. (PDF)

Stockton Record

Angel Island station an endangered site (PDF): Li Keng Wong, then 7, remembers the bars on the windows and the locked doors of Angel Island. “I asked my mother, ‘Mommy, why are we in jail?’ ” said Wong, one of thousands of Chinese immigrants detained at the Angel Island Immigration Station, which was placed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation endangered list.

SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER

Hong Kong: City in Transition — The struggle to survive (PDF): Things were going well for Lee Lap Kee back in 1997. The 36-year-old father of three had just gotten a job as a real estate agent and was hoping to cash in on the territory’s red-hot property market. Just over a year later, Lee was out of a job as the Asian financial crisis swept through Hong Kong.

Hong Kong: City in Transition — A penchant for piracy (PDF): It took only a few days after its U.S. debut before “Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace” was on sale on the streets of Hong Kong. Pirated VCDs of the movie were selling for as little as $2.50.