With more than forty faculty members offering courses or conducting research related to Korea, the Center has by far the greatest number of scholars of any such institution in the United States, and our resources for scholarship on Korea rank in the upper echelon of academic institutions throughout the world. Courses relating to Korea in fields such as anthropology, Asian studies, business, communication, dance, economics, history, journalism, language, law, linguistics, literature, music, political science, social work, and sociology are regularly offered. With its dedicated faculty and staff, and its many Korea-related activities, the Center for Korean Studies offers a rich opportunity for those interested in the study of Korea.
Full Members
Chizuko T. Allen
International Research and Fellowships Coordinator, School of Pacific and Asian Studies. Modern Korean intellectual history; ancient Korea's relations with Japan.
Christopher J. Bae
Professor of Anthropology. East Asian prehistory; paleoanthropology; vertebrate taphonomy; behavioral ecology; quantitative analysis; modern human origins; origins of agriculture in Korea, Japan, and China.
Tae-Ung Baik
Professor of Law. Director of Center for Korean Studies; International human rights law; human rights in Asia; comparative law; Korean law.
Sang Yee Cheon
Associate Professor of Korean Language and Director, Korean Language Flagship Center. Korean linguistics; phonetics/phonology; second-language acquisition; teaching language and culture through film/media.
Han-Byul Chung
Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures. Syntax, Korean linguistics, Manchu, Syntax-semantics interface.
Cheehyung Harrison Kim
Associate Professor of History. East Asia, Korea, North Korea, socialism, labor, industrialism, everyday life, urban life, transnationality, visuality.
Karl E. Kim
Professor of Urban and Regional Planning. Korean film; Cheju tourism development; attitudes of U.S.-trained planners in Korea.
Mary Shin Kim
Associate Professor of Korean Language. Discourse analysis; conversation analysis; Korean vocabulary acquisition; Korean language pedagogy.
Min-Sun Kim
Professor of Communicology. Role of cognition in conversational styles among people of different cultural orientations.
David Krolikoski
Assistant Professor of Korean Language and Linguistics. Modern Korean poetry; translation studies; poetics; postcolonial theory; transnational literature.
Hye-ryeon Lee
Professor of Communicology. Health promotion among Korean Americans; health communication; intercultural communication.
Sang-Hyop Lee
Professor of Economics. Korea's labor market; aging population; education investment; human resources; labor economics; population economics; economic development.
William O'Grady
Professor of Linguistics. Korean linguistics (syntax, language acquisition).
Thomas A. Osborne
Professor of Music. Composition; music theory; Korean instruments, music, and poetry.
Hyoung-June Park
Associate Professor of Architecture. Morphological transformation; digital design.
Mee-Jeong Park
Associate Professor of Korean Language. Instructional technology;K-ToBl; Korean boundary tones; Korean sentence-ending suffixes.
Young-a Park
Associate Professor of Asian Studies. Social movements; film industry; North Korean refugees.
S. Ghon Rhee
Professor of International Finance and Banking. Corporate finance; market microstructure; investment; financial market policy in the areas of development of the corporate, government, and municipal bond markets; pension systems; regional financial markets integration.
R. Anderson Sutton
Assistant vice chancellor for international and exchange programs. Korean contemporary musical practice and issues of identity; fusion aesthetics; mass media.
Donald R. Womack
Professor of Music. Music composition and theory; Korean instruments and music.
Myungji Yang
Associate Professor of Sociology. Comparative politics; Korean politics; development and democracy; class formation.
Associate Members
Sun-Ki Chai
Professor of Sociology. Korean culture and patterns of economic development; Korean collective identity and mobilization; social theory; culture and rationality; development and social change in East Asia; race and ethnicity; formal modeling and simulation.
Erica Soonyoung Chang
Head librarian, Cataloging Department, Thomas H. Hamilton Library.
Sumi Chang
Instructor, Korean Language Flagship Program. Korean sociolinguistics; pedagogy; second language acquisition.
Andre Haag
Assistant Professor of Japanese Literature. Narratives of empire, nation, and colony (Korea) in modern Japanese literature (Meiji-Taishō-Shōwa); Korean anticolonial resistance in Japanese popular colonial discourse and visual culture.
Seunghye Hong
Associate Professor, Myron B. Thompson School of Social Work. Health/mental health; social determinants of health/mental health; neighborhood contexts; immigration; community practice; multicultural practices with diverse populations; research methods.
Ji Young Kim
Associate Professor, School of Communications. Strategic communications in international and national contexts.
Hye Seung Lee
Instructor, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures. Korean linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Discourse analysis, Korean pedagogy.
Community Associate Members
Karl Moskowitz
Associate Member. History; social and economic development.
Duk Hee Murabayashi
Associate Member. President, Korean Immigration Research Institute in Hawaii; Sociology; urban and regional planning.
Retired Members
Minja Kim Choe
Senior Fellow, East-West Center, and Affiliate Graduate Faculty, UHM Population Studies. Family and gender issues; health behavior of adolescents and young adults; fertility and reproductive health; child survival; statistical analysis of demographic process.
Yong-ho Ch'oe
Professor of History. Educational history of Korea; Koreans in Hawai'i.
Hugh H.W. Kang
Professor of History. Late Silla-Early Koryŏ; comparative history of Korea, Japan, and China.
Joung-Im Kim
Associate Professor of Communication. Development/international communications; health communication in developing countries; social network analysis; diffusion of innovations.
Yung-Hee Kim
Professor of Korean Literature. Modern Korean literature; modern Korean Women writers and fiction; Korean literature and culture.
Hagen Koo
Professor of Sociology. Contemporary Korean society and culture; globalization and social inequality; comparative East Asian institutions.
Frederick Lau
Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology. Chinese music; music and politics; musical change; nationalism, identity, and diaspora; avant-garde music.
Dong Jae Lee
Associate Professor of Korean Language. Korean language teaching; general linguistics; languages in contact; sociolinguistics; Korean linguistics.
Yean Ju Lee
Associate Professor of Sociology. Aging, gender stratification, and family issues in East Asia.
Gary Yong Gi Pak
Professor of English. Korean-American/Asian-American/Ethnic American literatures; contemporary Korean cinema; contemporary Korean culture; Korean literature in translation; Korean immigrant history in Hawaii.
Edward J. Shultz
Professor of Asian Studies. Koryŏ history with a special interest in social, institutional, and political history; Korean history in general.
Ho-min Sohn
Professor of Korean Language. Korean linguistics and sociolinguistics; Korean language pedagogy; general and Oceanic linguistics.
Judy Van Zile
Professor of Dance. Traditional and contemporary Korean dance; issues relating to identity and change; dance iconography; movement analysis.