Sheng Kao OC ‘20

Independent Fellowship, Taiwan (2020-22)

Sheng will be working at New Bloom Magazine in Taipei - an independent bilingual digital publication founded by students and activists, which focuses on politics, culture, and social movements in Taiwan and the Asia Pacific. While at New Bloom Magazine, Sheng will produce editorial and artistic content that will highlight Taiwanese and Asian political issues for an international audience. She also plans on working on oral history projects, where she will help conduct, curate, and translate interviews. Sheng first worked with New Bloom on a Shansi In-Asia Grant with Jennifer Lin during Winter Term in 2019. We are thrilled to see Sheng expand her engagement with New Bloom over the next two years.

As a scientist and writer, Sheng is interested in the transmission of knowledge and information. She has a deep love for poetry and offbeat fiction. Her poetry has appeared in numerous online journals and been nominated for Sundress Publications' Best of the Net 2019 Award.

At Oberlin, Sheng held positions for the Oberlin Review, the Asian American Alliance, and Third World Co-op. Her favorite thing about Oberlin is how student-formed communities allow for social and political collaboration. For two years, she has served as an elected officer of the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association (OSCA), an independent nonprofit that has provided at-cost housing and dining to students for over half a century. OSCA's mission statement would be impossible without the hard work, collaboration, and dedication of her student coworkers, and she hopes to continue finding fulfillment in community-based work in the future.