Jaehong Kim, the Henry P. Becton Sr. Professor of Chemical & Environmental Engineering at Yale’s School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), is nationally and internationally recognized as a leader in the field of environmental nanotechnology and water quality engineering.

Kim,  pictured at left in the photo above along with fellow SEAS faculty members, is one of a team of Yale resarchers at the forefront of efforts to develop sustainable and culturally appropriate technologies for low quality source water reclamation in the developing world. His research interests include the application of nanomaterials and single atom catalysts for water treatment, advanced material-based approaches to solar water disinfection, and photocatalytic and electrochemical processes for environmental and energy application. His latest research focuses on developing a solar water disinfection window unit that could provide clean drinking water and safe disinfectant products like hydrogen peroxide to people who otherwise lack safe access to both.

Kim received B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemical and biological engineering from Seoul National University in Korea in 1995 and 1997, respectively, and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2002. At Yale, Kim also serves as chair of the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering. He continues to collaborate with eleven of his advisees in South Korea among other researchers and partners. 

View the video recording of the interview by clicking below:

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To learn more about Jaehong Kim’s research, visit the Yale News website.

Yale has a vast collection of over 20,000 volumes of Korean literary works covering a variety of subjects in the humanities and social sciences, with emphasis on history, archaeology, art history, literature and Buddhism dating back to the mid-19th century. Across the university, opportunities to engage with original works of art and primary source materials such as these volumes are woven into Yale coursework, from medical students studying a painting to hone their observation skills to environmental studies majors examining maps and photos to document a changing landscape.

LUX, a recently unveiled new platform, provides access to millions of records for objects, people, places, and events represented in Yale’s rich cultural heritage collections. Visit the LUX website to search collections across Yale’s museaums, archives, and libraries all in one place.

Volumes related to Korea are included in the collections in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (pictured above) and in the East Asia Library. Some highlights of Yale’s Korean collection include those featured below, selected with the help of Yale’s Korean Studies Librarian, Jude Yang. 

Yale University Library - Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library 

미륵하생경 Mirŭk hasaenggyŏng.

 

 

The Scripture for Maitreya’s Birth on Earth is a written account that comprises two Maitreya sutras: The Scripture for Maitreya’s Life in Tusita Heaven and The Scripture for Maitreya’s Birth on Earth. The text is transcribed onto indigo-blue paper using silver ink. It is presumed to have taken place towards the end of the Koryŏ Period, around the 14th century.

 

엄씨효문청행록 嚴氏孝門淸行錄

 

 

The Chronicle of the Filial Devotion and Clean Living of the Ŏm Family is a Hangŭl manuscript that serves as a copy of an unknown author’s novel. The central theme of the manuscript revolves around filial piety and is set in the Song dynasty in China. Given the condition of the paper, it is likely that the manuscript was copied during the Hŏnjong era (1834-1849) or the Kwangmu era (1897-1907).

This manuscript presents valuable research material for studying Korean novels and the history of Hangŭl.

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Yale University Library - East Asia Library

조선 옛이야기 그림책 Chosŏn yenniyagi kŭrimch’aek (= Chosŏn Old Story Picture Books) 

This series of children’s picture books is published in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), includes both well-known Korean folktales and stories that are unfamiliar to South Korean readers.

 

우리 의 고전 과 옛 교과서 Uri ŭi kojŏn kwa yet kyogwasŏ 

This collection is from the publication of the Hunmin chŏngŭm in 1446 at the Chiphyŏnjŏn to the issuance of “Korean Language 1-1” by the Ministry of Education in 1969, a total of 629 old textbooks covering all subjects are available as reference materials. These materials encompass rare classical texts and representative old textbooks that Korean people have utilized as fundamental resources for learning over the span of five centuries. The 629-volume collection is categorized by historical periods as follows: ① Chosŏn Dynasty (66 books), ② Korean Empire era (158 books), ③ Japanese colonial period (123 books), ④ Liberation to Korean War (164 books), and ⑤ Armistice to 1969 (115 books).

 

Yale School of Management (SOM) professor of operations management, Sang Kim, taught a spring semester International Experience course with a focus on Korean business culture and economic history.

For SOM students, the International Experience courses serve as a case study in learning about the complexities of a particular business environment. The course begins with a half semester of classroom study and culminates with a 10-day trip to one or more business capitals, during which students visit companies and meet business and political leaders. 

As part of Kim’s course, students had the opportunity to travel to South Korea and get a first-hand look at some Korean companies’ business frameworks while also fully immersing themselves in the Korean language, history, and culture.  

Prior to the trip, the students were divided into groups and tasked to research and present about each of the companies they were going to visit in Korea with their classmates. One group of students explored the role of Hyundai and the evolution of electric vehicles while another focused on the comparisons between different healthcare systems. Each of these presentations provided a helpful overview that the students could refer back to throughout the trip and prepared them to ask insightful, thought-provoking questions at the meetings. 

Upon arrival in Korea, the students were greeted and welcomed by Yale Club of Korea president, Charles Lho, who worked together with Kim to arrange the company meetings during the trip. Throughout their 10-day trip, the group of thirty-one SOM students visited nine corporations in varying industries including Hyundai Motor Group, Hansol Group, and Boeing Korea where they attended business meetings and spent time talking with business leaders. At these meetings, students gained a deeper understanding about Korea’s economic development and growth over the last several decades and learned about the upcoming challenges and opportunities that these businesses may face in the future. In addition, the students paid visits to two of Yale’s Korean educational partner institutions, Seoul National University and Yonsei University where they heard from Yale alumni and listened to discussions on Korean law and security and Korean healthcare systems. 

The trip also included cultural activities such as a palace tour of Gyeongbokgung and visiting the Demilitarized Zone, which helped frame the trip within the cultural and historical realities that exist in Korea. 

International Experience courses at SOM provide students the opportunity to learn about the complexities of a business environment in a global context and broaden their knowledge and perspectives to think more critically about the challenges and opportunities in our economic climate. According to Kim, for many students this trip was the “highlight of their MBA experience.” Through these immersive experiences, students are able to meet and hear from top business leaders and develop the necessary acumen to work effectively and to create impact in our world. Kim also said, “For the students accustomed to western culture and business practices, this trip to Korea was striking and refreshing to learn about perspectives originating from different norms.” 

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To learn more about the International Experience courses, visit the School of Management website. 

Grace Kao, the IBM Professor of Sociology and Professor of Ethnicity, Race and Migration at Yale, traveled to South Korea to present her research at several leading Korean academic institutions, including Korea University and Yonsei University. Her latest research focuses on the sociology of music, in particular K-pop and the significance its global popularity holds for Asian Americans and minorities in the United States.   

In Seoul, Kao delivered her two-part talk titled “The Importance of K-pop to the Sociology of Asian Americans and Music.” In the first portion, she spoke on the transformative possibilities that the popularity of K-pop has on the lived experiences of Asian Americans. She examined the vital role that Asian artists — like the globally recognized K-pop group, BTS — play in uplifting all Asian Americans, especially as voices of solidarity and advocacy against anti-Asian hate. Kao states, “Many of my students who love K-pop are from minority groups. They are Black or Hispanic and sometimes, non-binary. They say they feel like K-pop is a safer space.” 

The second part of the lecture was accompanied by a series of music videos which Kao used to highlight musical and visual similarities between the British New Wave in the 1980s and K-pop in the 2020s. She discussed a paper she co-authored called, “Are Friends Electric? The Influence of 1980s British New Wave on 2020s K-Pop” stating, “As a person growing up in the United States, many of the bands that I loved the most were white or Black, but certainly not Asian.” She continues, “So it was a big deal when BTS performed on Saturday Night Live (SNL) in the United States in 2019, becoming the first Asian of any kind to appear on the program as the musical guests.” 

Kao first developed her interest in K-Pop after having met an ethnomusicology graduate student studying BTS at a conference in March 2020. Throughout the COVID-19 lockdown she had the chance to delve deeper into the history of modern K-pop and began to follow the latest activities of performers associated with the genre. Kao’s research on the impact of K-pop on Asian American identity naturally aligned with her expertise in other research focus areas having to do with race, ethnicity, and migration as well as interracial relationships.

In addition to her academic talks, Kao attended musical performances, watched fan meetings, and visited several entertainment agencies where she was able to meet with managers and production teams to learn more about the K-pop industry. 

At Yale, Kao teaches a popular course called, “Race and Place in British New Wave, K-pop, and Beyond” and had one of her most recent literary works on K-pop published in the Journal of Popular Music Studies. She looks forward to building her connections in Korea and deepening her understanding while expanding her research on this topic. 

Pictured in the photos above are: (photo 1, left to right, top to bottom) Grace Kao with Korea University staff; (photo 2) Grace Kao and Yonsei University students; (photo 3) Grace Kao with Kim Doohyun and Jungjin Seo from the songwriting team MELODESIGN of Jellyfish Entertainment; (photo 4) Grace Kao and Yale Sociology PhD Student Meera Choi with managers Soyeon Shim and Hyunsoo Seo from Global H Media; (photo 5) Grace Kao and Yale Sociology PhD Student Meera Choi with manager Tina Kim and composer and musician Sooyoon Kim from FNC Entertainment; (photo 6) Grace Kao with Dahae Iris Choi of Hitfire Productions; (photo 7) Grace Kao and Yale Sociology PhD Student Meera Choi with CR Kim and Subin (SB) Kim of Aiming Music. 

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To learn more about Yale and Korea, read the April 2023 article Yale President Peter Salovey Visits South Korea to Expand Partnerships.

To learn more about Grace Kao’s work, read the following articles in the media:
• An article published by the Korean Times,
• An interview with Grace Kao published by the Korean Culture and Information Service. 
• An article in the South China Morning Post How a Yale professor, raised on MTV, saw BTS and fell in love with K-pop.

Theodore “Ted” Kim, two-time Academy Award winner and associate professor of computer science in the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science, was recently featured on President Peter Salovey’s ‘YaleTalk’ podcast. The episode featured a discussion about the Yale Computer Graphics Group’s research on promoting representation and countering racial bias in animation technology. 

Kim first joined Yale in 2019, and after having worked as a senior research scientist at Pixar Animation Studios for four years, he decided to return to academia. Through a collaboration with Yale film studies professor John Mackay, his work examines the intricacies of the technology used to depict animated humans in movies.  During the podcast, he described how he discovered that there was a significant gap in technical literature when it came to depicting visual features of computer-generated humans of color. Kim aims to address and rectify these issues in his current role as co-leader of the Yale Computer Graphics Group. 

At Yale, Kim works alongside Julie Dorsey and Holly Rushmeier, two renown Yale computer science professors who played an influential role in Kim’s decision to come work at Yale. He reflects on having incorporated professor Rushmeier’s models in his first job out of college and says, “the opportunity to come [to Yale] and work with the people whose work I had been using for decades was an immense opportunity.” The Group works to address and counter the racial bias present in computer graphics by developing techniques to capture visual features present on non-white characters in more realistic and accurate ways. 

As a Korean-American scholar himself, Kim emphasizes the importance of representation in animation and computer graphics. In the dual role of scientist and professor, he aims to push the needle with the Group’s research by finding and amplifying those voices that are often missing in storytelling. “We’re supposed to be the leaders in storytelling,” he says. “There are lots of stories out there and we haven’t told a bunch of them, so let’s go tell these stories.”

Last year, the Group received a $1 million gift from the Bungie Foundation, which will be used to support its leading, innovative research as it continues to work towards telling more diverse stories and fostering inclusivity on the animation scene. 

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To learn more, listen to the full Yale Talk podcast episode.

On April 7th, Yale extracurricular group Korean American Students at Yale (KASY) held their largest annual event, the KASY Cultural Show, highlighting Korean culture on Yale’s campus. Students performed a variety of acts, including singing, dancing, Taekwondo, and acting as they gathered to celebrate their love and appreciation for Korea. The 2-hour long showcase garnered an audience of over three hundred students, friends, and faculty. 

This year, the cultural show’s theme was 정 [jeong]. This term, so distinctively Korean, is one that does not directly translate to English, but roughly signifies a deep and profound loyalty to one’s community that grows stronger over time. Under the leadership of KASY’s Cultural Chair, Stella Choi, and the rest of KASY Board, the main aim of this year’s show was to demonstrate to a wider community what jeong means, as well as to foster jeong within the Korean and Korean-American community at Yale. 

Since its inception in 1984, KASY has been integral in fostering a unifying space for students of both Korean heritage and non-Korean heritage by aiming to promote the social, political, and cultural interests of the Korean American community at Yale. Seung Min Baik Kang, a Yale College first-year student and Outreach Chair on KASY’s Board, expressed the importance of finding a sense of community and belonging at Yale through KASY. Kang says, “I cannot imagine my time at Yale without student organizations like KASY. These organizations are spaces where students come together for their shared love and appreciation for their heritage and cultural background; they also create meaningful opportunities to cultivate new friendships. It has been particularly heartwarming to see students across all grade-levels form bonds that they likely would not have made without KASY.”

Importantly, KASY was at the forefront in the movement to revive Yale’s Korean Studies program in 1990. In addition to KASY’s private donation to re-establish the Korean Studies program at Yale, according to Kang “the [KASY members’ and students’] activism created a growing impact on the community that certainly reverberated to the administrative level.” This experience highlights the important role and powerful impact that student-led organizations at Yale can have in influencing decisions made at the higher level.

Since its revival, Korean Studies at Yale has attracted great interest and demand for more Korea-related courses has increased every year, with over 20 courses being offered this past academic year. As the Korean Studies department and Council on East Asian Studies continue to work together to expand the department’s team of faculty members, they also aim to broaden the selection of Korea-related course offerings, according to Council on East Asian Studies Chair, Hwansoo Kim. 

The KASY cultural show is one among many events hosted by KASY throughout the academic year to promote cultural awareness and unity among students. Other events include Korean food-related events, fireside chats with guest speakers, and one of Kang’s personal favorites, Adopted Friends, a collaboration with the New York Mountaineering Society that works to nurture a space for Korean cultural immersion for Korean American adoptee children in the Connecticut area. 

As KASY wraps up another successful academic year filled with entertaining events and opportunities for Yale students to come together, they hope to sustain their mission of striving “to increase Korean American political engagement on campus, strengthen its ties with local and global institutions, and expand its support for the Korean Department at Yale” in the coming years. 

To watch the video recording of the KASY Cultural Show, click the image below. 

Yale University President Peter Salovey arrived in Seoul on March 22 with a delegation of staff members to focus on strengthening Yale’s ongoing engagement in the region. Salovey met with alumni and collaborators at South Korean institutions to continue building the university’s research and educational partnerships in the country and the broader region. A highlight of the trip was a visit to the campus of Seoul National University (SNU), where he met with President Honglim Ryu and members of the university’s leadership team.

At SNU, Salovey also delivered a lecture to students, faculty, and invited guests on the topic of “Emotional Intelligence in the Lab, Workplace, and Classroom.” Following his talk, Salovey participated in a question-and-answer session with audience members. SNU is a member of the  Global Network for Advanced Management, a network of over 30 business schools around the world launched in 2012 by Yale and other institutions.

“I am particularly excited about the growing number of faculty-led collaborations between Yale and universities across the world,” Salovey said. “We have been expanding international collaborations in many areas, including global health and medicine. Of course, Yale’s mission is to educate future leaders in all fields and to serve all sectors of society, so engagement with universities in Korea and other parts of the world is vital to our aspirations.”

Salovey also said, “It was wonderful to speak about emotional intelligence with colleagues and students at Seoul National University. I particularly enjoyed the follow-up questions from students, which demonstrate the wonderful range of topics that the students are studying.”

During the trip Salovey was also welcomed by Yale Club of Korea’s president Charles Lho SOM ‘85 at an alumni event in Seoul, and was interviewed for a feature article about Yale’s interdisciplinary approach in education and its efforts to increase financial accessibility for all families in the publication Chosun Ilbo. 

Steven Wilkinson, Yale’s vice provost for global strategy, noted the important role played by the faculty and student research interests that underpin the university’s international engagements. “The last few years have highlighted how intrinsically linked our work at Yale is with the broader world in which we operate,” Wilkinson said. “As we continue to align the university’s global strategy with our mission of making a positive global impact and our embrace of global networks and exchanges, this visit to South Korea is a terrific example of Yale’s commitment to nurturing our connections in the region.”

In the March 2023 edition of our newsletter focused on East Asia we are pleased to present Yale’s international activities in the region. The stories featured range from highlighting faculty members with research in East Asia receiving awards, to a climate change conference hosted by the Yale Center Beijing, and a public health policy forum that took place in Shanghai.

Read about these topics and more in the newsletter available as a web page here or subscribe to receive future editions of this and other newsletters from the Office of International Affairs.

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