Board of Directors

President:

Andrew Jung is currently working as a federal contractor in the Washington DC area. Previously, he interned at the State Department in its Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, focusing on human-rights policy in the Asia-Pacific. He has also been a Consultant for the National Institute for Civil Discourse, helping to create NICDChat, a podcast program to encourage constructive and diverse dialogues on important, complex issues. He graduated with a MPA from American University in May 2016. He is originally from New York, where his activities have included raising civic participation among the Asian-American community and with The Korea Society, coordinating policy programs on U.S-Korea bilateral affairs. He received his B.A in Political Science and International Relations from SUNY Geneseo.

Treasurer:

Ryan Artze is a donor services associate with CAF America where he works on connecting US-based donors with international charities. Prior to joining CAF, he was a kindergarten teacher in Seoul, South Korea. In addition to teaching kindergarten, he was a volunteer with Teach North Korean Refugees where he taught English one on one to North Korean defectors. He has an MA from Georgetown University's Asian Studies Program where he studied Northeast Asian security issues and North Korean human rights. He received his B.A. in Political Science from Columbia University in 2014.

Director of Programming:

Terrence Matsuo is currently a non-Resident Fellow at Korea Economic Institute of America.He previously supported thought leadership development as a program assistant in the Policy and Diplomacy practice at McColm & Company. As the Assistant Editor and Senior Research Analyst at The Nelson Report, he provided analysis on trade and security issues for a newsletter focused on regional trade and security issues in the Asia-Pacific. He received his master of public policy degree from the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University after receiving his bachelor’s degree in political science and Japanese language from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Director of Communications:

Raveena Ugale is the Program Manager for the GW Institute for Korean Studies at the Elliott School. She has past experience as an English language instructor in Seoul, South Korea; as the Senior Editor for the Seoul National University Journal of International Affairs; and as a Research Intern at the East-West Center in Washington, DC, among other incredible experiences. Interwoven through her professional experience, Raveena has earned a M.A. in International Studies from Seoul University in Seoul, South Korea; a B.A. in International Affairs from the George Washington University in Washington, DC, and has studied abroad at Korea University in Seoul, South Korea and Sciences Po (also known as the Paris Institute of Political Studies) in Paris, France. Notably, Raveena authored a master’s thesis on U.S. interventionism in the Korea-Japan conflict. Prior to moving in her current role, Raveena served as Project Associate at CRDF Global, a non-governmental organization that delivers capacity building trainings all over the world.

Director of Research:

Alexander Eid is an Analyst for the Korea portfolio at The Asia Group consulting firm and a master's candidate in the Asian Studies Program at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service. His areas of focus include inter-Korean relations, the trilateral U.S.-Japan-South Korea relationship, nuclear non-proliferation, and the broader security dynamics of East and Central Asia. Prior to joining the Sejong Society, he received two bachelor's degrees from the University of Chicago in Physics and East Asian Languages & Civilizations and studied abroad in Gwangju, South Korea for a cumulative ten months on the Critical Language Scholarship and Boren Scholarship programs.

Committee Members

Programming:

Veronica Coffey is an International Affairs Masters student at the George Washington University in Washington D.C. with a regional concentration on Asia. In particular, she is interested in North Korean human rights issues, North Korean-Russian relations, and the South Korean women’s rights movement. She has received a B.A. in International Studies, East Asian Languages and Cultures, and Italian. Her concentrations not only include Korean Studies, but also expand to human rights issues in Italy, Ireland, and Eastern Europe. She has published work on South Korea’s Social Media Activism during the decriminalization of abortion in 2019, as well as on a comparative analysis of the #MeToo Movement in South Korea and Japan. She hopes to work on policy issues affecting change to promote human rights transnationally. She is currently an advocacy intern at the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America.

Jay (Jaewoo) Park is a journalist with over five years of experience specializing in diplomacy and unification in South Korea. Currently, Jay is a reporter on North Korean affairs for Radio Free Asia, having moved to the United States in 2021. Jay received a B.A. in International Relations from UCLA and has experience working in both South Korea and the United States.

Research:

Dan Mitchum (USA) holds a dual BA in Global Politics and East Asian Studies from State University of New York, Albany and an MA in International Cooperation from Yonsei University’s Graduate School of International Studies, Seoul. He has previously worked with organizations such as Liberty in North Korea to aid North Korean refugees in acculturation, the North Korea Review academic journal as a blog writer and copy editor, as well as World Vision Korea as an assistant in HIV/AIDS awareness outreach. Daniel is the former resident and non-resident James Kelly Korea fellow with the Pacific Forum and his research has been published in Insights & Issues, The Asia Times, and PacNet. Beyond the Korean peninsula, Daniel’s research interests include East Asian geopolitics, the rise of China, and nuclear nonproliferation.

Daniel Choi is a Project Associate at CRDF Global, where he works on DPRK Counterproliferation and Sanctions Evasions. Prior to joining CRDF Global, Daniel was the Policy Program Associate at The Korea Society, where he focused on projects involving the U.S.-ROK alliance, inter-Korean relations, and North Korea. He holds an M.A. in East Asian and international security studies from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where he was awarded the Gregory Henderson Fellowship for Korean Studies. He received a B.A. in Political Science and International Relations from Yonsei University."

Dohyun Im is a graduate student at the American University School of Public Affairs, studying Justice, Law, and Criminology after holding her BA in Psychology from the University of British Columbia. Her research interests include rising issues of drugs and delinquency through multidimensional perspectives including psychological, sociocultural, and geographical scopes.

Sophia Shum Gagnier is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto studying International Relations and East Asian Studies. Her research interests include North Korean political philosophy, post-conflict societies, and heritage studies.

Amy Han is a Consulting Associate at House Strategies Group where she works to support the Department of the Navy’s Public Private Venture (PPV) Program. Prior to joining HSG, she interned at KOTRA Washington where she worked as a Policy Research Specialist to conduct in-depth research on international trade, investment, and regulatory matters affecting exports and investments in the U.S. She has also interned at KOTRA Chicago and several non-profit organizations such as the Eurasia Center that is based in Washington, DC. She holds an M.A. in International Affairs from George Washington University. She received a B.A in Global Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Sheewon Min recently graduated from Georgetown University with a Master's in Asian Studies with dual concentrations on international political economy and politics and security. She is a current research intern at the Korea Economic Institute (KEI) where she mainly investigates ROK-ROC-PRC relations and U.S. alliance frameworks in East Asia. While her regional focus is mainly on the Indo-Pacific region, her area of interest includes but is not limited to multilateral economic frameworks, economic leverage (e.g., sanctions and export control), trade relations, and secondary states' policy decisions in the U.S.-China strategic competition. She holds a B.A. in Asian Studies from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, where she graduated one year early with honors.

Senior Advisor

Dr. Kongdan (Katy) Oh is an independent scholar and author. She was formerly a Senior Asia Specialist at the Institute for Defense Analyses, a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation. She is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, serves on the Board of Directors of the Korea Economic Institute of America, and is the co-founder and former co-director of The Korea Club of Washington, D.C. She has authored, co-authored and edited 8 books and numerous research monographs, articles, and book chapters. She has briefed top policy makers of the United States, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Canada, France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. She is fluent in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese, and can communicate in French, German, Italian and Spanish. Following her most recent book, North Korea in a Nutshell: A Contemporary Overview (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), her Korean-language memoir was published in June 2022. She is currently writing a book about an architect and his cat.

Advisors

Andrew I Park is a President Emeritus and former President of Sejong Society . He previously served as an interpreter/translator at the U.S.-ROK Combined Forces Command in Seoul, ROK and worked as a Defense Analyst at The Asia Group. Andrew regularly publishes articles on topics concerning U.S.-Asia affairs. He received a B.A. in Political Science, International Studies, and Asia Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and M.A. in Asian Studies from Georgetown University.

Junoh Kim currently serves as an electrical engineer and expert witness in the Office of Administrative Litigation at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Before joining FERC in 2015, Junoh worked in acquisition agencies at the Department of the Army for eight years, specializing in testing and evaluation, research and development, and project management for various defense programs. Having joined The Sejong Society as a Committee member in 2010, Junoh also served as Treasurer from 2011 to 2014. Junoh received a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland in College Park, and a master’s degree in Systems Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University.

Jaemin Baek is an Associate at Albright Stonebridge Group's East Asia & Pacific Practice. Prior to joining ASG, he interned at the PwC Growth Markets Centre in Singapore where helped develop client strategies for market entry and risk mitigation. He also served as an intern at the Office of the United States Trade Representative’s Office of Japan, Korea, & APEC Affairs. Additionally, he has held internships at the United States Chamber of Commerce and Emergency Committee for America Trade. Mr. Baek received a B.A. in International Affairs from The George Washington University and completed coursework at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea.

Declan Cummings is a security engineer at Facebook building software to detect and analyze nation-state threats to the Facebook community. Since 2014, he has served on the board of the Korean American Sharing Movement (KASM), which organizes an annual month-long leadership program for ambitious North Korean defectors. He is also a board member at Lumen, an organization striving to develop innovative solutions to deliver information across borders.