Introduction to the Project.
Intro
The Asian American mental health conference is an annual conference hosted by the Center for Asian American Christianity (CAAC) at Princeton Theological Seminary since 2022. Since their 2023 conference, I have led the branding, marketing, and streaming of the conference.
For the 2026 conference, David Chao, the director of the CAAC, collaborated with Carissa Dwiwardani, a psychology professor at the Rosemead School of Psychology, for an unprecedented co-hosted mental health conference held on the Biola University campus.
As a new initiative, this collaborative conference required new elements such as a standalone custom website, a new registration system, and more intentional coordination between East Coast and West Coast team members.
Services
Consulting on logistics and hospitality needs, branding management, website design, website hosting, marketing and communications, registration management, streaming management, videography.
Clients
Center for Asian American Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary
Rosemead School of Psychology at Biola University
What I Delivered.
Audience-Centered Programming.
For 8+ months, I worked closely with David and Carissa to shape a conference that was both rigorous and accessible to a public audience. My responsibility was to help them make decisions about the logistics of the conference so that attendees have the smoothest experience possible.
My input on the following decisions created a conference that was easy to access for both in person and virtual attendees, allowed for an expansive and communal processing of the emotionally and academically heavy plenary and workshop material, and well-staffed so that we had the margin to handle unexpected situations.
- Free virtual attendance for free and reduced cost in-person registration for increased accessibility.
- Every session streamed so that virtual attendees don’t miss any content.
- More breaks built into the schedule, allowing for decompression and conversations among attendees, as well as time to deal with any possible technical issues.
- Catering lunches so that attendees can connect over meals and don’t need to leave campus during the conference days.
- Engaging two new team members, one to handle hospitality, on-site logistics, speaker communication, and volunteer coordination, and the other to support the execution of the virtual components of the conference.
Conference Branding Management.
Design Parameters
I gave the designer our conceptual framework, along with some must-haves and dealbreakers.
Development
The designer gave a few visual ideas, out of which I selected a colorful theme with a tree representing flourishing and rupturing relationships.
Iteration
We refined the design through 3 rounds of iterations to create the final assets.
Application
I used the theme design, colors, and typography to create marketing materials including social media graphics, video thumbnails, etc.
The Mission: Plan, Promote, and Execute a Highly Engaging Conference for a Public Audience.
When we began planning this conference, we were a 3-person team: David Chao, the director of the Center for Asian American Christianity (CAAC) at Princeton Theological Seminary; Carissa Dwiwardani, a psychology professor at the Rosemead School of Psychology; and me. David and Carissa were organizing a conference on Asian American mental health and needed help turning their ideas into reality.
Along the way, our core team expanded to include Roberto, who supported the streaming of the event in coordination with the venue’s AV team, and Claudia, who took on hospitality, on-site logistics, front line customer service, and management of student volunteers. Training the new team members in the details of streaming/AV and conference logistics was an important element of my work for this project.