KDI School recently welcomed Professor Seungjun Kim to join its roster of high caliber academic mentors. An expert in international political economy, and foreign direct investment, Professor Kim, hopes to contribute to KDI School’s dynamic and vibrant teaching and research  and help achieve its mission of building a policy education hub.

I sat with Professor Kim to get to know him a little better and to welcome him to KDIS. 

Below is an excerpt of my interview with him:

Welcome to KDIS Professor Kim! Can you please introduce yourself and tell us about your background and field of expertise? 

My name is Seungjun Kim. Throughout a significant portion of my life, I have dedicated it to studying international relations. My particular focus is on international political economy in exploring how states strategically implement policies to advance their national interests. One of the examples of this type of policies are the policies that are pursued by the US and China during the recent “Chip War” where they compete with each other by means of industrial policies. Over the years, I have accumulated substantial research experience in these areas, and I firmly believe that these experiences and qualifications make me a valuable asset to KDI School.

What motivated you to join this institution as a professor? What qualifications and experiences do you bring to your new role as a professor at our school?

KDI School is a research-oriented institution, which is precisely the kind of environment that I was seeking. I wanted to be in an institution where I can fully commit and immerse myself in research work and other scholarly pursuits, so the opportunity to interact with the highly qualified scholars within the school is a significant factor that influenced my decision.  I believe that such interactions will provide me with invaluable learning experience and help enrich my academic journey further. 

I also consider teaching as a very serious task. Probably one of the most important goals in my academic career is to make teaching accessible and enjoyable for students.

What are your teaching philosophies and strategies? How do you plan to engage students and promote active learning in your classes?

I recognize the fact that sometimes learning can become monotonous and dry. For example, in my international relations classes, we need to discuss complex theories which are mostly based on philosophical foundations. These concepts are sometimes very challenging to understand and so to engage students, I try to use several approaches, such as injecting recent events and some interesting videos to capture their interests. I believe that by presenting real world application and relevance, students are better able to understand the importance of these significant theoretical frameworks.

How do you plan to contribute to the academic community at our school? What research interests or projects are you currently working on or planning to pursue? How do you plan to involve students in your research or scholarly activities?

The area that I’m recently studying, as I mentioned earlier, is the current standoff between the US and China and the outcome of these confrontations. Since the Trump administration, the US government has been pursuing different policies to compete with China and, at the same time, China has been responding to these policies as well. One of the things that I think is very important is understanding how neighboring countries in East Asia, such as Korea or Taiwan, react to these confrontations. I'm interested in studying some of the ideal policies that these countries can pursue to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs from these geopolitical situations. 

Also, I hope to etter interact with the students because I believe that interacting with them can help improve and enable me to better organize my thoughts on this research.  They might have good experiences and new insights to bring to my research on these topics. I hope to engage in these productive discussions with the students and have more research opportunities with them, such as through research assistant work.

What kind of support do you plan to provide to students in your role as a professor? Can you share some examples of how you have mentored or guided students in their academic or career pursuits?

Before coming to KDIS School, I was working for the University of California, and some of the students approached me and said that they became academically interested in learning international relations and pursuing graduate school, which for me was one of the very exciting and inspiring moments of my academic career. 

This is the kind of support that I can perhaps provide for the students. I can encourage them to have more insights on current international affairs and help them better learn about these recent events. Looking back, I was told that one of the things that my students found interesting about my teaching is the realization that political science is more of a scientific way of understanding things where we use scientific frameworks and approaches to understand things and people develop frameworks based on beliefs. As such, I hope that I can help students to develop their own framework and understand these events through my courses.

Is there anything else you would like to share with the students, faculty, and community at our school? What are you most excited about in joining KDI School? Any specific goals, plans, or aspirations you have for your role as a professor?

Since I am new in the school, I think I need a lot of help from the faculty and the students in familiarizing myself with how things work here and knowing how I can better contribute to the institution as a professor. I am most excited to interact with the students and faculty, especially the public officials from different countries to learn more about the issues related to my field of expertise and research topics.

Outside of his academic life, Professor Kim also shared that he is recently into playing tennis and enjoys reading psychology books, particularly those about human attachments and how people interact and build relationships with each other.

Professor Kim will be teaching an International Relations course in the fall semester. You can read more about his research and professional experience here: 

https://kdischool.ac.kr/faculty/view.es?mid=a10401010000&type=1&page=2&emp_no=311000357