Skye VanValkenburgh (吳思凱) is the Rental Services Manager and one of the Front Desk Attendants at the Crowden Music Center. She earned her B.A. in Chinese from San Francisco State University and is an alumni of the Chinese Language Flagship Program. She has studied at National Taiwan University; conducted several summer internships in Yilan County, Taiwan; and completed a yearlong intensive language capstone in China at Nanjing University, which included a six-month internship as the Program Assistant for the American Councils Chinese Language Flagship Nanjing Center. She previously worked as a Student Assistant at San Francisco State University’s Office of International Programs where she cultivated her skills and passion for a career in International Education Management. When not at Crowden, Skye works at UC Berkeley’s Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS) where she is a Program Coordinator with two jobs: at the Center for Chinese Studies (CCS), Skye manages all aspects of the CCS Visiting Scholar Program; at IEAS she manages the U.S.-Taiwan-European Next Generation Working Group, a policy training program for mid-career professionals interested in cultivating expertise regarding U.S.-Taiwan-European international affairs.

Although she has no innate musical talent (unless you count sharing a phonetically similar Chinese name with a very famous Taiwanese singer), she is, however, an avid metal head and enjoys a good symphonic metal band. When she isn’t working she relaxes by playing video games, reading books and comics, watching anime, and spending time with her friends and family.