Dr. HAHM Chaibong is the president of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. Previously, he was a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California, professor in the School of International Relations and the Department of Political Science as well as the director of the Korean Studies Institute at the University of Southern California, Director (D-1) of the Division of Social Sciences Research & Policy at UNESCO in Paris, and a professor in the Department of Political Science at Yonsei University. Dr. Hahm is the author of numerous books and articles, including “China’s Future is South Korea’s Present,” Foreign Affairs, (Sep/Oct 2018), Hanguk Saram Mandeulgi (Becoming Korean), Vols. I, II, (Asan Academy, 2017), “Keeping Northeast Asia ‘Abnormal’: Origins of the Liberal International Order in Northeast Asia and the New Cold War,” Asan Forum (Sep., 2017), “South Korea’s Miraculous Democracy,” Journal of Democracy (Jul., 2008), “The Two South Koreas: A House Divided,” The Washington Quarterly (Jun., 2005), and Confucianism for the Modern World (co-edited with Daniel A. Bell, Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Dr. JANG Ji-Hyang is a Principal Fellow and director of the Center for Regional Studies at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. Dr. Jang served as a policy advisor on Middle East issues to South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2012-2018) and currently serves to Ministries of Industry, Justice, and Defense. Her research interests include political economy of the Middle East and North Africa, political Islam, comparative democratization, terrorism, and state-building. Dr. Jang is the author of numerous books and articles, including The Essential Guide to the Middle East (Sigongsa 2023 in Korean), The Arab Spring: Will It Lead to Democratic Transitions?(with Clement M. Henry (eds.), Palgrave Macmillan 2013), “Disaggregated ISIS and the New Normal of Terrorism” (Asan Issue Brief 2016), “Islamic Fundamentalism” (International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 2008) and a Korean translation of Fawaz Gerges’ Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy (Asan Institute 2011). Dr. Jang received a B.A. in Turkish studies and M.A. in political science from the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Texas at Austin.