Category: Past Events

Yonho Kim is Associate Research Professor of Practice and Associate Director of GW Institute for Korean Studies. He specializes in North Korea’s mobile telecommunications and U.S. policy towards North Korea. Kim is the author of North Korean Phone Money: Airtime Transfers as a Precursor to Mobile Payment System (2020), North Korea’s Mobile Telecommunications and Private Transportation Services in the Kim Jong-un Era (2019) and Cell Phones in North Korea: Has North Korea Entered the Telecommunications Revolution? (2014). His research findings were covered by various media outlets, including Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Yonhap News, and Libération. Prior to joining GWIKS, he extensively interacted with the Washington policy circle on the Korean peninsula as Senior Researcher of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Senior Reporter for Voice of America’s Korean Service, and Assistant Director of the Atlantic Council’s Program on Korea in Transition. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in International Relations from Seoul National University, and an M.A. in International Relations and International Economics from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Yonho Kim is Associate Research Professor of Practice and Associate Director of GW Institute for Korean Studies. He specializes in North Korea’s mobile telecommunications and U.S. policy towards North Korea. Kim is the author of North Korean Phone Money: Airtime Transfers as a Precursor to Mobile Payment System (2020), North Korea’s Mobile Telecommunications and Private Transportation Services in the Kim Jong-un Era (2019) and Cell Phones in North Korea: Has North Korea Entered the Telecommunications Revolution? (2014). His research findings were covered by various media outlets, including Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Yonhap News, and Libération. Prior to joining GWIKS, he extensively interacted with the Washington policy circle on the Korean peninsula as Senior Researcher of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Senior Reporter for Voice of America’s Korean Service, and Assistant Director of the Atlantic Council’s Program on Korea in Transition. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in International Relations from Seoul National University, and an M.A. in International Relations and International Economics from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Speaker

Dr. Harry Franqui-Rivera is an Associate Professor of History at Bloomfield College, New Jersey. He served as Research Associate at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York (2012-2016). Dr. Franqui-Rivera is a published author, public intellectual, cultural critic, blogger and NBC, Latino Rebels, and Huff Post contributor. His work has been featured in national and international media outlets, including the New York Times; and he has been a guest in several National Public Radio programs including Throughline, Borinquén; and; On The Media, The Puerto Rican Debt Narrative. In his academic work, Doctor Franqui-Rivera specializes in Puerto Rican, Caribbean, Latino, Latin American, and Military History and focuses on the 19th and 20th centuries. Among other interests, he addresses the issues of nation building, national identities, citizenship, military institutions, and imperial-colonial relations.

His latest book, Soldiers of the Nation: Military Service and Modern Puerto Rico,1868-1952, was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2018. His second book manuscript, Fighting on Two Fronts: The Ordeal of the Puerto Rican Soldier during the Korean War will be published by Centro Press. He is currently conducting research on the Vietnam War and the Puerto Rican experience for a third book tentatively entitled: Patriotism and Resistance: The Vietnam War and Political and Cultural Strife in Puerto Rican Communities.

Jisoo M. Kim is Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures and Director of the Institute for Korean Studies at GW. She received her Ph.D. in Korean History from Columbia University. She is a specialist in gender and legal history of early modern Korea. Her broader research interests include gender and sexuality, crime and justice, forensic medicine, literary representations of the law, history of emotions, vernacular, and gender writing. She is the author of The Emotions of Justice: Gender, Status, and Legal Performance in Chosŏn Korea (University of Washington Press, 2015), which was awarded the 2017 James Palais Prize of the Association for Asian Studies. She is also the co-editor of The Great East Asian War and the Birth of the Korean Nation by JaHyun Kim Haboush (Columbia University Press, 2016). She is currently working on two book projects titled Suspicious Deaths: Forensic Medicine, Dead Bodies, and Criminal Justice in Chosŏn Korea and Sexual Desire and Gendered Subjects: Decriminalization of Adultery Law in Korean History.

Speaker

Dr. Tomoko Steen is a tenured Senior Research Specialist at the Science, Technology and Business Division at a leading government academic agency, and an Adjunct Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Georgetown’s Medical Center. Over the years, Dr. Steen has taken on a broad range of scientific research projects: on theoretical population genetics, on the epidemiology of antibiotic resistant strains, and currently on the biological effects of radiation using gut microbiomics. She also worked on humanities topics such as on the comparative history and policy of women in science, on an intellectual political history of Japan in Asia, on comparative health policies and biomedical ethics, and on the sociology of scientific knowledge and controversies. Dr. Steen has worked under prominent scholars both in science, and the humanities including William Provine, Motoo Kimura, Tomoko Ohta, Bruce Levin, Horace Freeland Judson, William Jack Schull, Trevor Pinch, J. Victor Koschmann and Naoki Sakai.

Speaker

Ambassador Lee is an experienced Diplomat and former Legislator, Ambassador Lee has served as Korean Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United States since October 2019. Prior to his appointment, Ambassador Lee served as a Member of the 20th Korean National Assembly, where he was a member of the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee, an Endowed Chair Professor at Dankook University in Seoul and First Deputy Director of the National Intelligence Service. He was previously the Ambassador to Germany, Deputy Minister for Political Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and Minister Counselor at the Korean Embassy in the United States. Ambassador Lee has published multiple works, including Conversations with Unified Germany (2006), Transforming Events – Analysis of North Korea’s Nuclear Issues (2008), and North Korea is a Reality (2011). He has twice been awarded the Order of Service Merit. He received his BA in International Relations from Seoul National University and MA in Political Science from Yonsei University. He is married with two sons.

Note: Registration closes at 5:00pm EDT on September 9. This event is on the record, open to the public, and will be recorded. Advance questions can be sent to gweanrc@gwu.edu with subject “Mongolia Q&A” or directly entered into Webex during the event.

Media inquiries must be sent to Jason Shevrin, jshevrin@gwu.edu. If you need specific accommodations, please contact gweanrc@gwu.edu with at least 3 business days’ notice.

Speaker

Marissa Smith is an anthropologist and Mongolia expert. She currently collaborates with the Central Asia Working Group at UC-Berkeley and is writing about regional and local governance, “raw material” economies, and Mongolia-Russia relations. Her latest publication is “Power of the People’s Parties and a post-Soviet Parliament: Regional infrastructural, economic, and ethnic networks of power in contemporary Mongolia,” in the Journal of Eurasian Studies.

Note: Registration closes at 12:30pm EDT on July 8. This event is on the record, open to the public, and will be recorded. Advance questions can be sent to gsigur@gwu.edu with subject “Julia Lau Q&A” or directly entered into Webex during the event.

Media inquiries must be sent to Jason Shevrin, jshevrin@gwu.edu. If you need specific accommodations, please contact gsigur@gwu.edu with at least 3 business days’ notice.

Speaker

Julia Lau is an independent scholar, tutor and writer based in Phoenix, AZ. A native of Singapore, she attended the National University of Singapore and Georgetown University, and has graduate degrees in law, security studies, and government. She has lectured at Georgetown University, The Catholic University of America, and McDaniel College in Westminster, MD in international relations and comparative politics. Her current research interests include war memory in Southeast Asia and China, and gender politics. She was a member of the American Political Science Association’s inaugural status committee on Contingent Faculty (2016-2019), advocating for better working conditions and understanding of contingent and adjunct faculty in political science.

Registered guests will receive a separate WebEx invitation email with details
for joining the event a day before the event.

Note: This event is open to the public and on the record.

Speaker

Terry Miller champions free markets as director of two of The Heritage Foundation’s key research centers, Data Analysis and Trade and Economics, and as the think tank’s Mark A. Kolokotrones fellow in economic freedom. At the Center for Trade and Economics, Miller focuses on research into how free markets and international trade foster economic growth around the world. He is editor of a signature Heritage publication, the annual Index of Economic Freedom. At the Center for Data Analysis, Miller oversees the statistical and econometric modeling that underpins the think tank’s wide-ranging research programs. Both centers are part of Heritage’s Institute for Economic Freedom and Opportunity. Before joining Heritage in 2007 as director of the Center for Trade and Economics, Miller had a distinguished career in the U.S. Foreign Service. In 2006, he was appointed as an ambassador to the United Nations and U.S. representative on the U.N.’s Economic and Social Council. Miller previously served at the State Department as deputy assistant secretary for economic and global issues. He headed offices at State devoted to the promotion of human rights, social issues, development and trade. Overseas, Miller served in Italy, France, Barbados and New Zealand. He headed the U.S. observer mission to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Miller did both his undergraduate studies in government and his graduate studies in economics at the University of Texas in Austin. He and his wife, the former opera singer Deborah Miller, have three children.

Discussant

Wonhyuk Lim is a professor at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management. He is a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS in 2020. Since he joined KDI in 1996, his research has focused on state-owned enterprises and family-based business groups (chaebol). He has also written extensively on development issues, in conjunction with policy consultation projects under Korea’s Knowledge Sharing Program (KSP). After the 2002 Presidential Election in Korea, he worked for the Presidential Transition Committee and the Presidential Committee on Northeast Asia and helped to set policy directions for the restructuring of the electricity and gas sector and for Northeast Asian energy cooperation. Dr. Lim was at the Brookings Institution as a CNAPS Fellow in 2005-06. After returning to KDI in 2007, he became Director of the Office of Economic Development Cooperation, precursor to the Center for International Development (CID). He received a Presidential order from the Dominican Republic for his KSP consultation work. In 2010, Dr. Lim helped to formulate the G20 Seoul Development Consensus for Shared Growth. In 2013, he became Vice President and Director of Department of Competition Policy at KDI. In 2014-15, he served as the inaugural Executive Director of the Center for Regulatory Studies. Most recently, he served as Associate Dean, Office of Development Research and International Cooperation, at KDI School. His recent publications include Opinion Polarization in Korea: Its Characteristics and Drivers (KDI, 2019, co-authored), Understanding the Drivers of Trust in Government Institutions in Korea(OECD, 2018, co-edited), Improving Regulatory Governance (OECD, 2017, co-authored), The Korean Economy: From a Miraculous Past to a Sustainable Future (Harvard, 2015, co-authored), and Global Leadership in Transition: Making the G20 More Effective and Responsive (Brookings and KDI, 2011, co-edited). He received a B.A.S. in Physics and History and a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University.

Moderator

Yonho Kim is Associate Research Professor of Practice and Associate Director of GW Institute for Korean Studies. He specializes in North Korea’s mobile telecommunications and U.S. policy towards North Korea. Kim is the author of North Korea’s Mobile Telecommunications and Private Transportation Services in the Kim Jong-un Era (2019) and Cell Phones in North Korea: Has North Korea Entered the Telecommunications Revolution? (2014). His research findings were covered by various media outlets, including Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Yonhap News, and Libération. Prior to joining GWIKS, he extensively interacted with the Washington policy circle on the Korean peninsula as Senior Researcher of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Senior Reporter for Voice of America’s Korean Service, and Assistant Director of the Atlantic Council’s Program on Korea in Transition. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in International Relations from Seoul National University, and an M.A. in International Relations and International Economics from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.