Acting East Timorese First Lady to Teach at Seoul National University

Prof.Jacqueline Aquino Siapo-De Araujo, the acting first lady of East Timor, will teach at Seoul National University from September.

The Filipino-turned East Timorese, 42 years old, is the first foreign professor hired by the Graduate School of International Studies at Korea's top university and will teach Southeast Asian history and culture and Southeast Asian politics and economy.
While teaching here, she also wants to study the background of Korea's economic development.
Korea suffered from extreme poverty and other difficulties after the Korean War in the 1950s. I want to learn how Koreans overcame the obstacles and made such economic development. I want to adapt it to my country,'' she said.
http://www.useoul.edu/news/news0101_view.jsp?idx=128902 .SNU said Siapno's field of experience in independence movements and academic career as a scholar fulfilled their requirements.
She worked for Amnesty International for the release of political prisoners, including Fernando La Sama de Araojo, who was serving a nine-year sentence for subversion. She married him in 2001, a year before East Timor gained independence from Indonesia.
"Prof.Siapno with East Timorese students in South Korea"

Siapno earned her master's degree from the School of Oriental and Asian Studies at the University of London and her doctorate from the University of California in Berkeley.

She held professional positions at universities in London, Australia, Indonesia, California and East Timor. Also, she has been a consultant with the United Nations Development Program, Oxfam, and Amnesty International.

Siapno is not the official first lady.

But because the East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta is single, Siapno ― whose husband is now the president of the National Parliament, the second most powerful man in the country ― has become the acting first lady, she said. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20090415-199381/E-Timor-first-lady-takes-bus-to-Pangasinan

Siapno has turned up at several domestic and international events as first lady, local media reported.

It was hard convincing people who wanted the first lady staying in the territory. But I wanted to study, do research and other academic activities without being portrayed as a political figure,'' she said. She plans to return to her country when she is needed for official duties.

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