Wayne de Fremery is a founding Board Member of CISK and Program Director of the Korea Text Initiative at CISK. He has a B.A. from Whitman College in Economics and an M.A. in Korean Studies from Seoul National University (2002).  He received his Ph.D. from the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard (2011) for a dissertation about poetry and publishing in early twentieth-century Korea titled "How Poetry Mattered in 1920s Korea." Currently, Wayne is an associate professor in the Department of Global Korean Studies at Sogang University and the author of a growing number of books and articles about the sociology of twentieth-century Korean literary texts and creative digital reiterations of canonical Korean literary works. Wayne's translations of Korean literature have appeared in a number of journals and from Parlor Press. Wayne is also a book designer and publisher; books that he has designed and/or typeset have appeared from the Korea Institute at Harvard, the University of Washington Press, as well as his own award-winning small press, Tamal Vista Publications. He is actively involved in a number of collaborations including Mapping Korean Literature, with the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (UC Berkeley), the development of A New Research and Learning Environment for Korean Literature & Culture with Sanghun Kim (Hyundai MnSoft), Korean Literature in the Cloud: Enabling Cultural Exploration with Windows Azure with Natasa Milic-Frayling (Microsoft Research, Cambridge UK), HowPoetryMattered.org with Alex Amies (Google), and Imaging Literature for Cultural Recovery with Sanghun Kim (Hyundai MnSoft) and Alex Yahja (National Center for Supercomputing Applications).

Edward Baker is a founding Board Member of CISK. Ed’s interest in Korea began with Peace Corps service there in 1966-68. He has lived in Korea for about 10 years and has traveled widely in Asia. He has a BA from Colby, a JD from Yale Law School and an MA in Regional Studies-East Asia from Harvard. He was a staff member of the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the U.S. House of Representatives during its Investigation of Korean-American Relations in 1977-78. He was the associate director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute for 25 years and taught East Asian and Korean history at Hanyang University and Seoul National University from 2007 through 2010. He frequently writes and speaks on Korean affairs. He was a founding member of the board of Asia Watch in 1985 and was Amnesty International’s US South Korea coordinator from 1979-91.

In recent years he has taken a strong interest in attempting to promote a peaceful solution to the confrontation between North Korea and the US/South Korea and the reunification Korea.

Brian Smith works for Microsoft in is Vice President at PSB Research. He consults with PSB’s technology clients to solve business challenges in cloud and enterprise computing. Mr. Smith has led a wide range of research initiatives including product value prop, positioning, and messaging; customer segmentation; policy work on corporate security and data sovereignty; competitive strategy; and new product development. He specializes in technical and commercial audiences, including corporate business decision makers, IT decision makers, IT implementers, and developers.

Mr. Smith brings over 20 years of global experience in marketing and business strategy, enterprise IT, and management consulting. Prior to PSB he defined marketing and business strategy for Microsoft and Deloitte Consulting in Seattle and led IT engineering at ABN AMRO and ING Barings in New York.

 Mr. Smith holds a MBA in international business from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BA from Whitman College.

Edward Shultz has an A.B. in Political Science from Union College, as well as a M.A. and and Ph.D. from the University of Hawai'i in History. He is currently Interim Chancellor at the Hawaii Tokai International College and Professor Emeritus at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His numerous publications about Korea include, most recently, The Silla Annals of the Samguk sagi, (Seongnam, 2012) (co-translator),  The Koguryŏ Annals of the Samguk sagi (Seongnam, 2011) (editor/co-translator), and “An Chŏngbok kwa “Tongsa kangmok”: Koryŏ musin chŏngwŏn e kwanhan kŭ kyŏnhaee taehan pip’yŏng” (An Chŏngbok and the “Tongsa kangmok”: A Critique of His Presentation of Koryŏ’s Military Period), Hanguk sirhak yŏn'gu, vol. 11 (2006).

Natasa Milic-Frayling

Natasa Milic-Frayling is Professor and Chair of Data Science at the School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham. She has a long track record in computer science research and innovation, focusing on new paradigms for digital content management and analysis, online communication and social interactions. She fosters collaborative approach to exploring opportunities and addressing challenges of digital systems by engaging in inter-disciplinary and user focused research. Natasa received her undergraduate degree in Applied Mathematics from University of Zagreb, Croatia and Doctorate in Applied Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. Prior to joining University of Nottingham in October 2015, Natasa worked as a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research (MSR) in Cambridge, UK. During her tenure at Microsoft Research, starting in June 1998, she was setting directions for the Integrated Systems team and covered a range of research areas, from core IR topics, such as relevance feedback and systems evaluation, to robust reputation scoring in social media, design of peer-to-peer recommendation systems, and Personal Information Management support across multiple devices and platforms. Her research was published in +80 papers, presented at top tier conferences and produced +20 working prototypes, including contributions to NodeXL and Project Colletta that have been used by thousands of users. She has been granted 13 patents for technical innovation in her work.

Young Jun Lee

Young Jun is currently a professor of Korean literature at KyungHee University in Seoul. He worked as an editor for one of Korea’s largest publishing companies, Minŭmsa, for about a decade before deciding to return to graduate school to pursue an academic career. He has a Ph.D. from Harvard in Korean literature. In addition to publishing widely, Young Jun has been the managing editor of  AZALEA: Journal of Korean Literature and Culture for ten years.

Javier Cha

Javier Cha is a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Hong Kong, where he researches and teaches subjects related to Sino-Korean cultural interactions and the digital humanities.

His academic training is in the history of medieval and early modern Korea. In the spring of 2014, he completed a PhD degree in East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University with a dissertation on the social, intellectual, and geopolitical factors that contributed to the Korean adoption of Confucianism between 900 and 1500. A more detailed outline of my indulgence in Korea’s distant past is available here.

On the contemporary side, he is a committed observer of South Korea’s ICT sector. His fascination is with South Korea’s spectacular and unexpected transformation from a low-wage manufacturing economy to a major player in consumer electronics, telecommunication, and R&D. But not every aspect of South Korea in the 21st century is rosy. He is deeply concerned about interrelated issues such as income inequality, population aging, automation of labor, and dependence on large conglomerates. He provides a historian’s perspective to South Korea’s hopeful and worrisome prospects, through which he tries to gain some insights into life after the end of Fordism and fossil-fuel economy.

Alexander Akin

Alexander Akin had his first experience abroad at the age of 15 in North Korea, as a delegate to the World Festival of Youth and Students. This startling experience led him to the study of East Asian history and languages as an anthropology student at UC Riverside. He finished his PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard in 2009. Aside from brief stints teaching at Brandeis and at the Roxbury Latin School, he has spent most of his time since then at Bolerium Books in San Francisco, where he is now the junior partner.

Alex Amies

Alex works at Google as an engineer on their Cloud Computing team and has authored a book on Cloud Computing. He is also fluent in Chinese, having worked for IBM in China for a number of years, and has authored a self-published book on Chinese art.

Sam Oh

Sam Oh is a professor at Sungkyunkwan University (established in 1398), Seoul Korea and an affiliate professor at UW iSchool. Prior to joining SKKU, he taught at the UW iSchool for 4 years as an assistant professor. His teaching and research interests include metadata and ontology design, data modeling, social data analytics, big data analytics, and knowledge management (KM). He has extensive consulting experience in the areas such as metadata, ontology, and data analytics. He was recently elected as iCaucus Chair (http://ischools.org/news/dr-sam-oh-elected-icaucus-chair/). He chaired TC46/SC9 (Identification & Description) for 6 years and currently serves as a chair of ISO/IEC JTC1 SC34 (Document Description & Processing Languages). He also serves as a member of DCMI (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative) governing board. He has also teaching experiences at other iSchools such as Syracuse University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Texas Austin, and University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

Juliette Neu

is the Chief Operations Officer at CISK. With experience in innovative technologies, engineering, and advanced manufacturing sectors with a global reach covering the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia, as well as emerging businesses and market economies, Juliette brings a wealth of knowledge to CISK.

Juliette has a multi-faceted and global background. She lived and worked in Europe, West Africa, East Asia, and North America. She speaks four languages (English, French, Korean, and Spanish). Juliette holds a Master of Arts in Public Anthropology from American University and began her doctoral research in 2012 in Anthropological Archaeology at the University of Pittsburgh with a focus on the emergence of the state during the Proto-Three Kingdom Period of Korea.  Juliette won several prestigious fellowships and was invited to serve as researcher at the Smithsonian Institution and at the Department of Interior. As a multilingual and multicultural trained anthropologist, Juliette is a relationship builder and a trusted advisor with a deep commitment to bridging academia and the corporate world, building outreach programs and making knowledge and scholarship accessible to the general public.

Juliette was born and raised in France. She is a passionate and avid learner. She is curious, welcomes people’s wisdom, enjoys discovering new places, sharing meals with friends, and helping her children grow.

Sanghun Kim

served for many years as a senior platform architect at Hyundai Motors where he developed navigation systems for Hyundai and Kai automobiles. He holds a Master’s in Computer Graphics & Digital Imaging from Chung Ang University and a Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering from Young Nam University. More recently, Sanghun has been  developing software for the exploration of culture. He currently lives in Toronto Canada.

Eugene Y. (Gene) Park is a historian of East Asia, especially Korean politics and society since the 14th century. After studying at UCLA and Harvard, Park completed postdoc with the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale (2000) and has held faculty appointments at the University of California, Irvine (2000–09), the University of Pennsylvania (2009–20), where he served as director of the James Joo-Jin Kim Program in Korean Studies (2010–19) and the University of Nevada, Reno (since 2020). Park has also taught at Harvard, Korea University, McGill, Seoul National University and Yonsei University, as well as giving some sixty invited lectures, speeches, or presentations, including the 26th Annual Stanley Spector Memorial Lecture on East Asian History and Civilization at Washington University in St. Louis (2019). Author of four books, he is currently writing Korean Civilization: A History; translating Gim Ingeol, The Politics of Public Opinion in Joseon Korea: Local Councils and People’s Assemblies, 1724–1894 (Brill, under contract) and editing (with George L. Kallander and Michael J. Pettid) The Cambridge History of Korea, volume III, The Chosŏn Dynasty, 1392–1910 (under contract). Besides history, Park maintains interest in genealogy, haplogroup genetics, physical anthropology, portraiture and religious studies. He has served as a consultant to Who Do You Think You Are? (Wall-to-Wall Productions/George IV Productions), Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (PBS) and Ancestry.com. In 2016 Park co-chaired the organizing committee of the Eighth Biennial World Congress of Korean Studies.