Alumni Speakers & Volunteers

The upper school art department invited Tiffany Lay ’12 and her partner Zo Lin from the artist collective Weed Day to lead two days of nature workshops with the upper school art students. Weed Day promotes sustainability and embraces “weeds” because they are the most resilient, hardy, and natural occurring plants in any environment, yet they often go underappreciated. The two have done artist residencies around the world where they examine the local flora and create artworks that often involve the community. Each workshop at TAS began with brewing “weed” tea brewing in the back of the studio from local plants the two foraged from their plot in Taipei. The workshops included natural weaving, eco prints, paper making, nature writing, and nature meditation inspired design. The artworks from the workshops were showcased in the US Art department’s show examining Art & The Environment.

Each year, NOVA Weekend gives TAS students and other students across the island a chance to tackle big questions through entrepreneurship. This year, NOVA presented students with the challenge of creating a product or service that would contribute to sustainability. Over the twoday competition, alumni mentors and judges helped students brainstorm and test ideas and guided them as they developed their products and pitches. Thank you to keynote speaker Joe Hei ’93 and mentors and judges Class Agent Kent Wu ’95, Board Chair Jay Cheng ’97, Paul Torkehagen ’04, and Eric Tsai ’08!

The Upper School Arts Department welcomed back two alumni Yenyen Chou ’12 and Joan Ho ’08 to Fashion & Costume Design to talk about their Cosplay experience. They talked about their character choices and creation and showed Upper School students how they designed and made their costumes.

Dr. Albert Wu ’91 spoke to AP Biology students in Mr. Ross Olson’s class about his own time at TAS as Mr. Olson’s student and his life and career. Albert is now assistant professor of ophthalmology at Stanford University School of Medicine. He leads the Stanford Ophthalmic Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory and is developing leading-edge treatments for vision loss and eye disease. Albert is on sabbatical this year in Taipei.