Authors

Sangita Annamalai hails from the Bay Area, California and decided to stick around the area to get her B.S. in Molecular Environmental Biology from UC Berkeley. Though her main education focus was studying the itsy bitsy parts of the human anatomy, she maintained a steady interest in public health alongside a fascination with the Korean culture (proudly stemming from an avid interest in Korean television shows). To combine these two interests, Sangita is researching the barriers of healthcare access of the migrant women in South Korea, with a special emphasis on migrant wives. She hopes to bring light to their issue and provide healthcare policy recommendations for the government.

Whitney D. Barr, a native of Columbia, South Carolina, is a proud alumna of Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia where she majored in English Literature through the lens of race and gender. During college, Whitney also took an interest in the plight of marginalized people internationally and studied abroad in Botswana, South Africa, France, and South Korea.  While in France, she focused on North Africans’ utilization of Hip Hop as a means of dealing with racial oppression. A mind-blowing course taught by Dr. Stephen Knadler at Spelman, titled “Imagining Afro-Asia,” heavily influenced her return to Korea. She is currently investigating the influence of Hip Hop (both American and Korean) on Korea’s perception of race, racial consciousness, and identity through an ethnographic approach.  Will Hip Hop be the leading agent, in a historically homogenous nation, to encourage diversity, acceptance, and polyculturalism? Stay tuned through her blog posts and feel free to share inciteful commentary. Upon her return to Atlanta, Georgia, she will work for Delta Air Lines as a commercial strategy analyst. In her free time, Whitney loves cooking/juicing, listening to music, watching Scandal and reading.

Chelsea Carlson graduated from Harvard College with an A.B. in East Asian Studies and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Her research interest is women in politics, and specifically the recruitment of women candidates by political parties. This year, she is researching gendered differences in Korean politicians’ professional networks, and how those differences affect individuals’ career prospects. See her posts for discussions about gender, Korean politics, network theory, and candidate selection.

Aaron Chung is an artist from San Francisco, California, and is the first generation of his family to be born and raised in the United States. He studied abroad in Florence, Italy at the Studio Art Centers International, and received a Bachelors of Fine Art in painting and art history from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 2013. Aaron has shown works in Baltimore’s Subbasement Artist Studios and Current Space Gallery, The De Young Museum in San Francisco, and MICA. In order to explore self-identity as a Korean-American and the idea of the cultural “other,” he combines traditional Korean aesthetics with modern theoretical concepts like post-colonial theory, abstraction, and semiotics. This mission manifests in the reconstruction of traditional East Asian symbols in his work, which re-imagines them as symmetrical patterns with a modern aesthetic sensibility. While he primarily utilizes acrylic paint and mixed media on canvas or paper sculptures, Aaron will incorporate his training with traditional Korean painting techniques using sumi ink and mulberry paper in his Fulbright project.

Michael Chung is a recent graduate of Northwestern University, where he received his degree in Economics and Mathematics. Though a native of New Jersey, he has spent time in South America and Africa, and is interested in the economies of developing nations. Michael’s research project attempts to identify the ways in which corporate governance and equity values are related in Korea’s chaebols. Through his Fulbright, he hopes to shed light on the ramifications of Korea’s heavy conglomeration on both its economy and society.

Adam Glassman is a recent graduate from Grinnell College with a B.A. in Theatre and Dance.  During his study he focused on both modern and ancient methods of performance training, often with a focus on collective improvisation and consciousness shifting. His current Fulbright research project deals with the links between modern performance in South Korea, including stage plays, musicals, break dancing, and modern dance, and traditional performance arts including Tal’Chum (mask theatre), rural dance, and the Kut of Mudang, Korean traditional shaman. By finding the hidden similarities in these methods of performance, he hopes to better understand how performance informs and stems from national identity, something he hopes to bring back to the U.S. His larger mission comes from a search for fundamental methods of body-mind training and healing from all over the world, linking them all into a method of physical and mental training to improve everyday life in the modern era.

Dorry Guerra majored in Visual Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She studied the science and philosophies of vision; read the history of art; and practiced graphic design and photography. Currently, Dorry’s field of interest is social and cultural psychology. Her Fulbright project attempts to capture the “mixed-race” experience in South Korea, and document prevailing perceptions and conceptions of race. Ultimately, as South Korea experiences cultural and demographic changes, Dorry hopes to understand the (expanding) notion of “Koreanness.”

Andrew Ju is a graduate of the University of Southern California where he studied International Relations and Global Business. He is currently studying the political economy of South Korea’s green technology and nuclear energy industries, but his blog posts will discuss foreign policy, export policy, and political economy in general. Andrew is a born and raised Southern Californian, a burrito enthusiast, and is far too curious for his own good.

Philip Kong received his B.S. degree from California Institute of Technology in 2013. He was born in Los Angeles, CA, but spent his childhood in Korea until the age of 13. Philip’s main interests are in scientific research, and he has participated in several research projects with supports from Caltech and Amgen Co. throughout his undergraduate study. He is currently visiting Seoul National University, Korea as a Fulbright researcher. His current project involves studying a Korean native extract and its immunological effects. Philip plans to continue his graduate study in immunology starting from the Fall of 2014.

Michelle Kwon is a recent graduate of Georgetown University where she received her degree in Government. Though born in Ohio, Michelle has spent time in California, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., and South Korea; as such, her research and areas of interest include domestic and international affairs, specifically international law, trade policy, and security studies. She has served on the editorial staff of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs and has held internships in both the public and private sector, including the White House. In her free time, she enjoys indulging in gastronomical adventures and watching re-runs of The West Wing.

John S. Lee is originally from southern California and began his Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages at Harvard University in 2009. He is currently writing his dissertation on the social, political, and environmental dimensions of forestry policies in pre-industrial Korea. John is also broadly interested in studying environmental policy in the pre-industrial world, analyzing major structural transitions in Korean and world history, and the avid appreciation of all things comestible and potable.

Jessica Paik majored in Painting and History of Visual Studies at the Rhode Island School of Design.  As a developing subject throughout her artistic career, Jessica’s studies are focused on the relationship between Korean and American aesthetics.  Many of her most recent works experiment with combining and collaging together fragments or elements from Korean and American or Western art.

Nathaniel D. Taylor is a Ph.D. Candidate at Drexel University in Philadelphia majoring in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on electronic plasmas. He is currently working with the Plasma Bioscience Research Center at Kwangwoon University in Seoul, Korea to explore the effects of plasma on skin cancer cells.