Emma Chanlett-Avery is Deputy Director of the Asia Society Policy Institute's Washington, DC office and the Director for Political-Security Affairs. Previous to this post, she served for 20 years as Specialist in Asian Affairs at the Congressional Research Service, where she focused on U.S. relations with Japan, the Korean Peninsula, Thailand, and Singapore, with an emphasis on security issues and alliances. In 2023, she served as a Congressional Fellow on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, assisting the Chairman with drafting Asia policy legislation and preparing for hearings. Ms. Chanlett-Avery was a Presidential Management Fellow, with rotations in the State Department on the Korea Desk and at the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group in Bangkok, Thailand. She also worked in the Office of Policy Planning as a Harold Rosenthal Fellow. She is a member of the Mansfield Foundation U.S. – Japan Network for the Future, a Mansfield-Luce Asia Network Scholar, and a recipient of the Kato Prize. She serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the National Association of Japan America Societies, Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Japan America Society of Washington DC, and as a Trustee of International Student Conferences, Inc. Ms. Chanlett-Avery received an MA in international security policy from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and her BA in Russian studies from Amherst College.

Dr. Kuyoun Chung is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Kangwon National University. Her research focuses on American and South Korean foreign policy and security issues in the Indo-Pacific, including regional security architecture, maritime security, and grey-zone conflict. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2011. She was previously a lecturer in the Department of Political Science at UCLA (2011–2012), visiting professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy (2014–2015), policy advisor to the Vice President of the Presidential Committee for Unification Preparation (2015), and research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification (2015–2018). She also joined the US State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program (2017) and has served as a member of the policy advisory committee of the Ministry of Unification, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defense, and ROK Navy.

Dr. Katrin Fraser Katz, is The Korea Society's inaugural Van Fleet Nonresident Senior Fellow. Dr. Katz is a former director for Japan, Korea, and oceanic affairs on the staff of the National Security Council, where she served from 2007 to 2008. She is also a Scholar-in-Residence in the Master of Arts in International Administration (MAIA) program at the University of Miami and an Adjunct Fellow (Non-resident) in the Office of the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC. Previously, she was a special assistant to the assistant secretary for international organization affairs at the U.S. Department of State and an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. She was previously an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University and has also taught at Georgetown University. In 2017, Dr. Katz received the inaugural Sherman Family Korea Emerging Scholar Lecture Series award from The Korea Society. Dr. Katz’s research, which has been supported by grants from the Korea Foundation and the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, explores the interplay of cooperation and conflict in East Asia’s political, economic, and security dynamics. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from Northwestern University; a master’s degree in East Asian and international security studies from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where she was awarded the John C. Perry Scholarship for East Asian Studies; and a bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, in international relations and Japanese from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Nishino Junya is a Professor, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law, Keio University in Tokyo, Japan. He also serves as Director of the Center for Contemporary Korean Studies at Keio University. His research focuses on contemporary Korean politics, international relations in East Asia and Japan-Korea relations. Dr. Nishino was a Japan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a Visiting Scholar at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, George Washington University (2012-2013). He was also an Exchange Scholar at the Harvard-Yenching Institute (2011-2012). Previously he served as a Special Analyst on Korean Affairs in the Intelligence and Analysis Service of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2006-2007), and was a Special Assistant on Korean Politics at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul( 2002-2004). Dr. Nishino received his B.A. and M.A. from Keio University, and Ph.D. in Political Science from Yonsei University in South Korea.