VISITING SCHOLARS

Fellowships are granted on a rolling basis. For consideration, please submit research proposals to Dr. Jae Ku, Director, USKI.

Sang-Kun Bae, Ph.D.

Dr. Bae is currently a research fellow at KERI (Korea Economic Research Institute). After he received his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Missouri in 1998 (and his B.A. from Yonsei University in 1988), he worked as a research fellow at KIET (Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade). Before joining SAIS as a visiting scholar, he also served as a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and the University of Missouri. He is currently a member of both the Korean Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee and the Committee on Finance and Taxation, the Federation of Korean Industries. Dr. Bae has also served as a member in the Policy Evaluation Committee, Office for Government Policy Coordination, and the PECC PEO/Structure Committee, and lectured at the Graduate School of Business and Sogang School of Economics, Sogang University (Korea).

Dr. Bae's major fields are Monetary Economics, Macroeconomics, Financial Economic, and International Finance and he has published several outstanding papers including: “Long-Run Neutrality, High Inflation, and Bank Insolvencies in Argentina and Brazil (with Ronald A. Ratti)”, Journal of Monetary Economics, 2000, “Korea (with Dongsoon Lim)”, Fiscal Deficits in the Pacific Region (ed. by Akira Kohsaka, Routledge, London, 2004), “Long-Run Neutrality in a Fractionally Integrated Model (with Mark Jensen and Scott Murdock)”, Journal of Macroeconomics, 2005, “Political Influence and the Banking Sector: Evidence from Korea (with Jaewook An and Ronald A. Ratti)”, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 2007, and “Conservative Central Banks, and Nominal Growth, Exchange Rate and Inflation Targets (with Ronald A. Ratti)”, Economica, forthcoming, etc.

Suk-In Chang, Ph.D. 

Dr. Chang is a senior researcher of Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade (KIET). From 1986 to 1991, he worked at the bureau of trend analysis at KIET. In 1989 he was a visiting researcher at the Development Center at the OECD. That same year, Dr. Chang also worked at NISER in England as a visiting researcher. Since 1997, Dr. Chang has worked as a professional commissioner at the OECD. Since 1999, he has worked as a commissioner for the Regulatory Reform Committee under the President. Also, since 2001, he has worked as a commissioner for the Government Performance Evaluation Committee under the Prime Minister.

Dr. Chang taught Economics, International Trade and Theory of Public Industry Policy to students at Korea University, Soongshil University, Joongang University and The University of Seoul. In 1996, he held his Ph.D. from the Department of Economics at Northern Illinois University.

Dong-Yeon Kim, Ph.D.

Dr. Kim is currently the Director General in the Ministry of Planning and Budget, Korea’s central budget and planning authority, where he is heading the Industrial and Economic Sector Budgeting Bureau in the Budget Office. He previously headed the Strategic Planning Bureau in the Ministry and also served in the World Bank as a Senior Public Sector Specialist and project manager. During his more than 20 years in the Korean government, Dr. Kim served in key economic and policy-related positions mainly in the Ministry of Planning and Budget, Ministry of Finance and Economy and the Economic Planning Board. He also served in the Office of the President, including as the Chief Coordinator to the Chief of Staff to the President. During his services in the Korean government and the World Bank, Dr. Kim has published various papers and policy reports on an extensive range of topics including top-down budgeting, medium-term expenditure framework and performance management.

Dr. Kim earned his LL.B. from Kookje University in Seoul, M.A. in Public Administration from Seoul National University, M.A. and Ph.D. in Public Policy from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor under the Fulbright Scholarship. He was also a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at SAIS and occasionally lectures on public policy-making and budgetary politics at graduate schools in Seoul.

Tong Kim

Tong Kim retired from the U.S. Department of State as the senior Korean language interpreter in June 2005 after 27 years of service, during which he interpreted for four American presidents – Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and W. Bush. He also interpreted for Secretary of State Albright’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in 2000. He participated in almost all bilateral negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang until his retirement, after which he spent two years in Seoul doing research and writing. He is also a regular biweekly columnist of The Korea Times since January 2006, writing extensively on North Korea. During his stay in Seoul, Professor Kim taught three courses at Korea University. At the Graduate University of North Korean Studies and other institutes, he provided special lectures on U.S. policy toward the two Koreas. Professor Kim has written numerous pieces on the North Korean nuclear issue and U.S. diplomacy towards the two Koreas, and given over 45 press interviews discussing the issues of the North Korean nuclear program and the U.S.-Korea alliance. He has also provided more than 40 special lectures and speeches to academic and research institutes on U.S.-North Korean relations. Tong Kim received a master’s degree from SAIS in 1973, and has a B.A. in English from Korea University. 

Young-Ju Kim

Young-Ju Kim comes to the USKI as South Korea’s former Minister of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE). Prior to his appointment at MOCIE, Kim served as the Minister for Government Policy Coordination (2006-8). Minister Kim’s extensive career in South Korea’s public sector started with twenty years in Korea’s Economic Planning Board. In 1996, Kim joined the president’s administration as the Assistant Secretary to the President. In 1998, he joined Korea’s Ministry of Budget and Planning (MBP) and served in Director-level positions for various bureaus within the MBP including the Fiscal Policy and the Social Development Budget Bureaus. In 2001, Kim was appointed Secretary to the President for Policy Coordination and National Policy, and in 2002, he was appointed as the Deputy Minister of Finance and Economy (MOFE). Prior to his ministerial appointments, Kim served in senior advisory positions to the President for both Economic Policy and Policy Planning.

Minister Kim holds a B.A. in Sociology from Seoul National University in Korea and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago in the U.S. Over his illustrious career, he has received citations from the Finance Minister (1977) and the Prime Minister (1985). In 2000, he was awarded the “Red Stripes” Order of Service Merit.  

Jae-Oh Lee

Jae-oh Lee is a distinguished politician in South Korea and has devoted his life’s work to the democratization of Korean society. A former high school teacher, from 1971-1996 Lee was involved with organizations which opposed South Korea’s authoritarian regimes and worked to bring about democracy. In 1979, Lee also served as the director of Amnesty International-South Korea. Lee’s political career began in 1996, when he was elected into the 15^th National Assembly and in 1998, he became the vice floor leader of the Grand National Party (GNP). He was re-elected as a National Assemblyman again in 2000. In 2002, Lee managed Lee Myung-bak’s (now President-elect) successful re-election campaign for Mayor of Seoul and served on the Mayor’s Seoul government transition team. Lee was also appointed to a GNP planning task force for the 2002 presidential elections. In 2004, Lee was re-elected into the 17^th National Assembly and became a house representative for the GNP. From 2006-2007 Lee served as a supreme council member of the GNP.

In addition to his political career, Lee has written several books including “Long Tunnel, Blue Sky (1991), Bicycle Trip in Korea along the River Road (2007), and The Age and Division of Korean Society. Lee holds his B.A. from KookMin University and the Department of Economics at ChoonAng University, an M.A. from the Graduate School of Education at ChoonAng University, and an honorary Ph.D. from the Department of Politics at ChoongAng University.

Kathryn Weathersby, Ph.D.

Dr. Weathersby most recently served as Senior Associate and Coordinator of the Korea Initiative of the History and Public Policy Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. This project conducted research on the history of North Korea through the archives of its former allies in the communist world. Dr. Weathersby received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Russian history with a second field in Modern East Asian history from Indiana University, where she served as Outreach Director of the East Asian Studies Center. She taught Russian and East Asian history at Florida State University while conducting pioneering research on the Korean War in Russian archives. She has lectured on North Korean history, the Korean War, and the Cold War in Asia at universities and research institutes in Europe, Asia, Canada and the U.S., and has served as a consultant for television documentaries in the U.K., Japan and the U.S. Supported by numerous research grants and fellowships, her publications include "The North Korean Enigma: Back to the Future?" (IRI Review (Seoul), Spring 2005) republished in Challenges Posed by the DPRK for the Alliance and the Region (Korea Economic Institute (Washington, DC), October 2005), and "New Evidence on North Korea," (ed. Cold War International History Project Bulletin, Spring 2004).

Read Dr. Weathersby's lecture on "The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Establishment of the Republic of Korea" as presented to the International Conference Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Republic of Korea (July 2008)

Joel S. Wit

Joel S. Wit is concurrently a Senior Research Fellow at Columbia University Weatherhead Institute for East Asian Studies. Mr. Wit worked for 15 years in the U.S. Department of State on arms control and non-proliferation issues. From 1995-2001 he was the Coordinator for Implementation of the U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework. After leaving the State Department, he was a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Mr. Wit is the co-author of Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis published by the Brookings Institute Press in 2004. He has also written numerous journal and newspaper articles on North Korea as well as appearing on television and radio.

Deok-Ryong Yoon, Ph.D.

Dr. Yoon most recently worked as a senior research fellow at KIEP (Korea Institute for International Economic Policy). He is also an invited professor at the Institute for Korean Unification Studies at Yonsei University. He received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Kiel University in Germany. He was an Executive Director of PECC Korea and director general of APEC Education Foundation. He continues to serve as a member of various expert groups and advisory committees in diverse ministries and presidential offices in Korea. In addition to numerous papers and books, he is the author of “Asian Monetary Cooperation: A Search for Regional Monetary Stability in the Post-Euro and the Post-Asian Crisis Era” in Economic Papers (Bank of Korea 2000), Searching for a Better Regional Surveillance Mechanism in East Asia (KIEP 2002). The Role of Regional Development Banks: Financing for Development and Solidarity in East Asia (Edward Elgar, London, 2003), "How to Finance North Korea's Capital Requirements for Economic Recovery," (East Asian Review, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2004) and National Financial Revenue and Expenditure of North Korea (KIEP 2005).

At SAIS, he is writing a textbook on “Economics of North Korea” using his accumulated lecture notes and research results. This book will focus on explaining the current economic situation of North Korea on the basis of economic theories.  

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