WORKING PAPER SERIES | RESEARCHER BIOS

Walter Andersen is the Associate Director of the South Asia Studies Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. Andersen recently retired as Chief of the U.S. State Department’s South Asia Division in the Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia and has held other key positions within the State Department, including Special Assistant to the Ambassador at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and Member of the Policy Planning Staff in Washington, D.C. Andersen holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago and has previously taught at both the University of Chicago and the College of Wooster.

Charles K. Armstrong is The Korea Foundation Associate Professor of Korean Studies in the Social Sciences in the Department of History and the Director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University. A specialist in the modern history of Korea and East Asia, Professor Armstrong has published several books on contemporary Korea, including The Koreas (Routledge, 2007), The North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950 (Cornell, 2003), Korea a the Center: Dynamics of Regionalism in Northeast Asia (M.E. Sharpe, 2006), and Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy, and the State (Routledge, second edition 2006), as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. His current book projects include a study of North Korean foreign relations in the Cold War era and a history of modern East Asia. Professor Armstrong holds a B.A. in Chinese Studies from Yale University, an M.A. in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and a Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago. He has been a member of the Columbia faculty since 1996.

Carla P. Freeman is the Associate Director of the China Studies Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. Freeman has held various academic positions, including Chair of the program in global studies and international affairs at Alverno College in Milwaukee and Visiting Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has also served as Program Officer for Civil Community with The Johnson Foundation and as a political risk analyst. Freeman holds a Ph.D. in China studies from SAIS.

Im Hyug-baeg is a professor in the department of political science and diplomacy at Korea University and his major fields are comparative government and political theory. He is a head of the Korea Social Science Committee and a section chief for Korea political research at the institute for ASEA studies at Korea University. Dr. Im is a member of various societies including, the Contemporary Korea History Group, the Korea Politics Society, and the Korea International Politics Society. He has taught at Ehwa Womans University in Seoul, South Korea, as well as both Georgetown University and Duke University in the U.S. Dr. Im was also a sector chief of Political Reform Research for the Presidential Transition Team at the beginning of 2003. He is currently a director of policy researcher for the Uri party. Dr. Im, who received his Ph.D. from Chicago University, is the author of The Market, the State, and Democracy: Korean Democratic Transition and the Theories of Political Economy, and co-author of Political Integration of The Two Koreas: Theory and Practice, as well as author of numerous articles on political economy and transitions to democracy.

Rian Jensen received an M.A. (with honors) in International Relations from The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in May 2009. His areas of interest are U.S. foreign policy and international relations in East Asia. Prior to SAIS, Rian managed U.S. government-funded democracy promotion programs in Asia, including North Korea, and edited a policy journal on Chinese strategic and political economy issues. Mr. Jensen holds a B.A. from the University of Washington (Seattle).

Kang Miongsei is currently a leading researcher in the department of international politics and economics at the Sejong institute in Seoul, South Korea. He holds a degree in philosophy and an M.A. in political science from Korea University; and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California-Los Angeles. He has published several books, such as An Economic Crisis and Social Agreement (1999) and Politics for Labor and Welfare in Globalization and Post-industrial Society (2006). Dr. Kang’s research interests include the relationship between globalization and domestic politics, as well as game theory and the application of statistical models to industrialized developed countries.

Chang-Yeon Kim is a political research engineer at the Good Policy Forum in Seoul, South Korea. Prior to his work at the Good Policy Forum, Mr. Kim spent several years working in Belgium. In 2005, he was a bio-statistical researcher for Janssen & Janssen; in 2004, he was a statistical researcher for the Leuven University Intego Database; and in 2002, he worked as a consultant on a CRM solution for Nitto CRM. Mr. Kim holds a B.A. in Business Administration from Korea University; and an M.B.A. and M.S. in Applied Statistics from Hasselt University in Belgium. He is the author of, “The Denominator in General Practice, A New Approach from the Intego Database” (Oxford Journals, 2005).

Eleana Kim is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Rochester. Her research since 1999 has examined the political, economic and cultural dimensions of transnational adoption from South Korea, and she has published articles based upon this research in Visual Anthropology Review, Social Text, and Anthropological Quarterly.

Jae-young Lee is the Director of Planning and Research Coordination at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP). He is also an Advisory Council Member for the National Intelligence Service of Korea. He has served as an Advisory Council Member for the Korean Railroad Corporation and the Head of the Research Division for the International High Speed Rail Cooperation Forum. Dr. Lee holds a B.A. in Economics and an M.B.A. from Hanyang University, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Moscow State University. He has taught at the Asia-Pacific Research Center at Hanyang University and has served as a Visiting Scholar/Research Fellow at several academic institutions including: the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, the Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Institute for Sino-Soviet Studies at Hanyang University, and the Institute of Far Eastern Studies at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Dr. Lee is widely published on East Asian and Korean economic relations with Russia and Central Asia.

Jee Sun E. Lee is a Research Professor at the Asiatic Research Center at Korea University. Professor Lee holds a B.A. in Political Science from Stanford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University. She taught at Williams College as the Freeman Foundation Visiting Assistant Professor of Korean Studies and as the Daewoo Professor of East Asian Studies at Sogang University’s Graduate School of International Studies. She is currently finishing her book manuscript on Korean and East Asian nationalism, Specters of Korea: Space, Time, and Nation.

Gavan McCormack is an emeritus professor in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. A graduate of the universities of Melbourne and London (Ph.D. from London in 1974), he taught at the Universities of Leeds (UK), La Trobe (Melbourne), and Adelaide, before joining ANU in 1990. His recent books include The Emptiness of Japanese Affluence (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2nd revised edition, 2001; Japanese, Korean and Chinese translations from Misuzu shobo, Changbi, and Shanghai People‘s Publishing House), Japan’s Contested Constitution – Rethinking the National Role (co-authored with Glenn Hook, London, Routledge, 2001) and Target North Korea: Pushing North Korea to the Brink of Nuclear Catastrophe (New York, Nation Books, and Sydney, Random House Australia, 2004; Japanese edition from Heibonsha, 2004; and expanded Korean edition from Icarus, Seoul, 2006). 

In June 2007, he published Client State: Japan in the American Embrace (London and New York, Verso, 2007; Japanese edition published by Gaifusha in August 2008; the Korean edition by Changbi in September; and the Chinese edition by Social Science Academic Press of China in November 2008). Dr. McCormack is also a coordinator of the web journal, Japan Focus, and contributes a monthly invited essay (published in Korean) to Kyunghyang Shinmun (Seoul).

Kim Park Nelson is a scholar and educator of Korean adoption, Asian American Studies, American race relations, and American Studies. Between 2003 and 2006, she collected 73 oral histories from Korean adoptees in the United States and the around the world. She also developed and taught the first college course on Korean adoption in the United States. She is an assistant professor of American Multicultural Studies at Minnesota State University at Moorhead.

Shen Zhihua is currently the director of the Cold War International History Research Center and a history professor at East China Normal University. He is also a guest professor at Peking University. He attended the graduate school of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and joined an M.A. program of World History from 1979 to 1982.

Professor Shen’s main research includes Soviet History and Cold War International History, with an emphasis on Sino-Soviet relations and the Korean War. He has published more than 80 academic articles and numerous books, including New Economic Policy and Socialization of Agriculture in the Soviet Union (1994), Soviet Experts in China (2003), and Mao Zedong, Stalin, and the Korean War (1998/2003). He is also the editor-in-chief of several collections of archival documents, including A Collection of Historical Documents of the Soviet Union (34 volumes), and The Korean War: Declassified Documents from the Russian Archives (3 volumes).

Kathryn Weathersby is a Visiting Scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute and an adjunct Korea Studies faculty member of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Before coming to SAIS, Dr. Weathersby served as Senior Associate and Coordinator of the Korea Initiative of the History and Public Policy Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. This project conducted research on the history of North Korea through the archives of its former allies in the communist world. Dr. Weathersby received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Russian history with a second field in Modern East Asian history from Indiana University, where she served as Outreach Director of the East Asian Studies Center. She taught Russian and East Asian history at Florida State University while conducting pioneering research on the Korean War in Russian archives. She has lectured on North Korean history, the Korean War, and the Cold War in Asia at universities and research institutes in Europe, Asia, Canada and the U.S., and has served as a consultant for television documentaries in the U.K., Japan and the U.S. Supported by numerous research grants and fellowships, her publications include "The North Korean Enigma: Back to the Future?" (IRI Review (Seoul), Spring 2005) republished in Challenges Posed by the DPRK for the Alliance and the Region (Korea Economic Institute (Washington, DC), October 2005), and "New Evidence on North Korea," (ed. Cold War International History Project Bulletin, Spring 2004).

Yoon Sung Hak is currently a professor at the Institute for Russian Studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. Prior to joining Hankuk University, Dr. Yoon was a researcher at the Daewoo Economic Institute, Daewoo Bank, the Korea Studies Center at IMEMO in Russia, and CIS Consulting. Dr. Yoon holds a degree in Russian language from Korea University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Yonsei University. He is the author of such notable books as Business in Russia, Why Russia in the 21st Century, and Guide to Business in Central Asia.