Participant Bios

Eun Jeong Choi (she/her/hers) is a scholar of modern East Asian cultural history and film and media, sound, and urban studies, with a focus on Japan. She received her Ph.D from New York University. Her research examines the cultural and social histories of media, sound, and everyday life, situating them within broader historical transformations. Drawing on film, literature, and archival sources, her work explores how sensory practices and media forms both reflected and shaped modern experience, with particular attention to Japan and its historical relationship with Korea.

Heesol Hwang (she/her/hers) is an art historian based in New York and Seoul. She is currently a doctoral student in Art History at Binghamton University, State University of New York (SUNY). She graduated with a master’s degree in Art Theory at Hongik University in Seoul. Her thesis is the first monograph on the Korean avant-garde artist Kim Yong-min, reaching his oeuvre. Her research interests focus on Korean modern and contemporary art. 

Nahyun Hwang (she/her/hers), AIA, is a licensed architect, educator, and founding principal of N H D M, an NYC-based practice for design and research at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, and territory. Until founding N H D M, Hwang practiced as a Senior Associate at James Corner Field Operations and as the Lead Designer (2004-2006) and Lead Project Designer (2007-2010) for High Line Sections 1 and 2, heading a multidisciplinary team of architects, landscape architects, and others. Prior to Field Operations, she practiced at Stan Allen Architects; Herzog & de Meuron; OMA; and the studio of Rafael Moneo. Hwang is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University GSAPP and has taught at Cornell University, the University of Toronto, Cooper Union, and the University of Michigan. Hwang holds a Master of Architecture degree from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University and a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.

Mi Jang (she/her/hers) is a designer-researcher exploring how editorial and community-based design shape cultural identity in transnational contexts. She recently completed a BA in Architectural Studies and Visual Studies at the University of Toronto. As founder and president of the Daniels Korean Association, she has led bilingual publications, workshops, and public programs for Korean and diasporic discourse across art, architecture, and design. Her practice focuses on how student-led cultural production can generate meaningful public engagement. She will begin the M.S. in Computational Design Practices at Columbia GSAPP in Summer 2026.

Minkyou Jun (he/him/his) is a New York-based researcher and cultural critic who explores how cultural products reflect and reshape collective mentality. With a background in art history, Jun published writings on Korean art and K-pop culture in both Korea and the US, and his current research focuses on post-war Korean cinema. Jun is a Film Team intern at the Korean Cultural Center New York. He holds an MA in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and an MA and BA in Asian Languages and Civilizations from Seoul National University.

Hyun-Tae Jung (he/him/his) is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the New York Institute of Technology, where he teaches the history and theory of architecture. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture from the University of Seoul and completed his Ph.D. in the History and Theory of Architecture at Columbia University. He has published extensively on modern and contemporary architecture. He recently guest-edited the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation’s summer 2025 issue of the Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly. He also served as a juror for two international design competitions in Seoul in 2024.  

Seungyeon Gabrielle Jung (she/her/hers) is a design historian and media scholar whose research interrogates the politics and aesthetics of design, with the postwar developing world as a critical site of inquiry. Her first book in preparation, Utopia of Problems: Nation-Designing in Postwar South Korea, challenges widely accepted definitions of design as a problem-solving method by analyzing failed state and corporate design projects—marginalized within dominant narratives that valorize clean, functional modernist forms as signifiers of progress and prosperity. Currently, she is an assistant professor of Art History and Visual Studies at UC Irvine.

Dongsei Kim (he/him/his), is chair and associate professor in the Department of Architecture, New York Institute of Technology. He is an award-winning architect, urbanist, and educator, whose research explores architecture and urbanism’s relationship to nation-state borders across multiple scales. It investigates the notions of “inclusion” and “exclusion” and how “us” and “them” are defined through spatial practices. His work on the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) has gained international recognition through reputable publications and exhibitions. He is the author of “Drawing Hwa-Chaeng: Mapping Contested Territories for Imagination” (Seoul: Jeongye-C Publishers, 2022), a critical exploration of creative mapping in contested border spaces. 

James Hojung Kim (he/him/his) is a second-year student at the University of Rochester's English PhD program. He received a BA in English Language and Literature and an MA in English Literature from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. His previous research concerns the literary portrayals of Korean immigrant figures in becoming the American subjects and of their negotiations of the Korean legacies. He is currently focusing on how the nineteenth century American and British literature, novels in particular, tackled the problem of the unrepresentable, that is, the sublime and the infinite.

Hae Yeun Kim (she/her/hers) is Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Brooklyn Museum. In 2025, she received a Ph.D. in Art History from Columbia University. Interested in the cross-cultural aspects of artworks, she examined Unkoku Tōgan (1547–1618) and painting in early modern western Japan in light of intercultural dimensions in the East Asian context in her dissertation. Prior to pursuing her doctorate, she worked as a curatorial intern at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, a full-time Korea Foundation Graduate Intern at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Research Associate for Korean art at the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

HyoSun (Suri) Kim (she/her/hers) is a PhD candidate in Art History at Binghamton University, SUNY. Her research spans science and technology art, digital and bio- humanities, and visual culture. Currently, she is working on her dissertation, "Autonomacracy: Excess Forms of Life in Bioart." She has a BS in Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and worked as an assistant curator at the Seoul Museum of History from 2019 to 2020. She is a co-editor of the research project titled The World Leads to Seoul, Seoul Leads to the World: 1984-1988 (2019).

Man Joong Kim (he/him/his) is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at Binghamton University. His primary research investigates the genealogy of transpacific architectural networks and urbanism between South Korea and the United States during the Cold War. He is interested in topics exploring the social responsibilities of architects, Cold War exchange programs, and knowledge production.

Jong Soung Kimm (he/him/his) is the honorary president of Seoul Architects Consultants (SAC) International Ltd., which he founded in 1978. He is an internationally renowned architect with a diverse portfolio that includes the Weightlifting Gymnasium for the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art, Ajou University Hospital, Hilton International Hotel in Seoul, and the SK Corporation headquarters. In the 1960s, he began his career in Mies van der Rohe's office and taught architectural design at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) until 1978. Kimm has presented his work at numerous venues, including UIA Congresses (Montreal, 1990), the Getty Research Institute for the History of Art & Humanities (Los Angeles, 1998), and the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) Congresses (Melbourne, 2001; Seoul, 2011). He also served as commissioner of the Korean Pavilion Architectural Exhibition (Venice Biennale, 2002), committee chair for the DOCOMOMO Conference (Seoul, 2014), and honorary chair of the UIA Congress Organizing Committee (Seoul, 2017). Kimm is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA) and the Korean Institute of Architects, and he has received the Korean government’s Order of Merit and the Korean Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal.

Jackie Kim-Wachutka (she/her/hers), Ph. D., is a Tenured-Lecturer at Ritsumeikan University, Japan. Her works include Hidden Treasures: Lives of First-Generation Korean Women in Japan (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005); Zainichi Korean Women in Japan: Voices (Routledge, 2019); Seoul Journal of Korean Studies Special Issue Contemporary Zainichi Experience (June 2023; December 2023); “Zainichi Korean Women and Intersectional Visibility: Private Talk, Public Speech, Political Act – Seeking Justice in Japan” (Seoul Journal, 2023); “Hate Speech in Japan: Patriotic Women, Nation and Love of Country” (Routledge, 2020), and more. She has filmed two documentaries on narratives of aging in Japan. 

Sang Dae Lee (he/him/his) is a curator, designer, and educator whose work engages architecture and urbanism through design-led research and exhibition practice. As principal of UNITEDLAB Associates, he advances a speculative design methodology integrating spatial practice, social inquiry, and environmental systems. His exhibition work positions architecture as a critical medium for addressing identity, migration, and urban transformation. He was named the Laureate of the 2024 American Prize for Architecture, and his firm has received honors from the AIA, Architizer, ASLA, and the Chicago Athenaeum. He serves as Associate Professor of Practice at Texas A&M University and holds an M.Arch from SCI-Arc.

Junghyun Nam (she/her/hers) studies the internal dynamics of collective action and the repression-resistance nexus. Her dissertation, based on a case study of Candlelight Protests in 2016–2017, examines the emergence, operation, and consequences of a normative system that constructs peaceful protest as non-contentious action through the circulation of emotional, behavioral, and relational scripts. Her research also explores protesters’ perceptions of and responses to police repression, as well as the spatial and temporal dimensions of social movements. Junghyun earned her Ph.D. in 2025 and currently serves as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at George Mason University.

Joowon Park (he/him/his) is the Chair and Associate Professor of Anthropology at Skidmore College. He is the author of Belonging in a House Divided: The Violence of the North Korean Resettlement Process (published by University of California Press, 2023), which chronicles the everyday lives of resettled North Koreans in South Korea and their experiences with violence, citizenship, and ethnic boundary making. He is working on a new book project tentatively titled, Inheriting War: Paper Bombs, K-pop, and Militarized Infrastructures from the DMZ to Seoul. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, ASIANetwork, and others.

James Podgorski (he/him/his) is a PhD candidate in the History Department at Binghamton University, studying the intersections between South Korea and the U.S. in transforming the Korean environment during the Cold War.  His dissertation examines Korean and American collaborative networks that aimed at transforming the Korean landscape during the Cold War, focusing on the Community Development programs, reforestation projects, and public-private institution building between Korea and the United States.  His research intersects with the history of science and technology, the history of technology transfers, environmental history, and transnational history between East Asia and the United States.

Kyunghee Pyun (she/her/hers) is a specialist of Asian art, Asian American studies, and European medieval art. She has published on topics related to Asian American visual culture and the reception of Asian art in Europe and North America. She developed her doctoral dissertation into a book on Jean Pucelle and has written on the Remède de Fortune Master and Guillaume de Machaut, all active in the fourteenth century. Her other research interests include the global trade of luxury and decorative arts in pre-modern Eurasia and Americas; usage and reception of visual art in context of religious performance and liturgy; interplay of word and image; and the history of art collections. In recent years, she has collaborated with scholars of Asian American studies.

Daichi Shigemoto (he/him/his) received his PhD in architectural history from the University of Texas at Austin in 2024 for his dissertation, “Hideto Kishida: Mediator between Modernism and ‘Japanese-ness’ in Architecture.” His research examines the transnational circulation of architectural knowledge and its role in shaping modernity, with particular focus on Japan’s exchanges with the West and other East Asian countries. He is the guest editor of the August 2023 issue of a+u, “The Seven Principles of R. Buckminster Fuller,” and the author of “Ise Jingū: The Architecture of Peace and Sustainability” in Handbook of Japanese Aesthetics, edited by Melinda Landeck (Routledge, forthcoming). 

Jin Young Song (he/him/his), AIA, is a registered architect in New York State and a founder of DIOINNO Architecture PLLC, Buffalo and Seoul based design firm. His interest is in viewing the contemporary façade as a mechanism that integrates manifold technical and non-technical elements, thereby generating a specific relationship between people and the culture. To explore resilient building envelope applications and alternative construction systems, Song’s recent projects are investigating instability design applications (snapping, buckling, stack-interlocking, etc) in architecture.

Sang-Keun Yoo (he/him/his) is an Assistant Professor of English at Marist University in New York and will join the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge as an Assistant Professor in fall 2026. He is the author of Speculative Orientalism: Asian Religions in New Wave Science Fiction (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) and is currently editing The Routledge History of Korean Science Fiction (forthcoming in 2027).