Korea - People

There are over 140 Korean students currently studying at Oxford, making Korea the seventh largest source of non-European students for the University. The Social Sciences are the most popular courses among Korean students at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, followed closely by the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences. For Korean students at Oxford looking for support networks, the student-led Oxford University Korea Society provides a focal point for social and cultural activities. The Society was founded in 1986 by a number of enthusiastic and pioneering students seeking to encourage lively interactions among the Korean population in Oxford and to promote Korea as a nation of both transition and tradition worldwide. Since then, the Society has expanded its membership with an ever-increasing number of students, visiting professors and researchers alike, and has firmly established itself as a representative body of Korean residents in Oxford.

Oxford University Korea Society
The University of London and Oxford University Korea Society (ULKS) is the largest Korean student organisation in the United Kingdom, and is made up of the Korea Societies from within the various Universities of London and at Oxford. Formed over a decade ago, ULKS aims to create a backbone of support both for those Korean students who have come to the UK as international students, and for Koreans who have grown up in the UK but wish to keep in touch with their cultural heritage. ULKS is also one of the key points of contact between the Korean and Non-Korean communities, aiming to create a public forum where Koreans and Non-Koreans can meet, thus promoting better cultural understanding and exchange.

Oxford has 13 members of Korean staff on its faculty. These academics and researchers are found in all of the University’s divisions, although most are in the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division, particularly in Chemistry and Computer Science.

Dr Jieun Kiaer
Dr Jieun Kiaer is Young Bin Min-KF University Lecturer in Korean Language and Linguistics at the Oriental Institute. Her teaching and research interests include semantics, syntax, Korean Grammar for Modern and Middle Korean, Korean-Japanese Comparative/Contrastive linguistics, East Asian Linguistics and their contribution to General Linguistics and Historical Linguistics and Literature in Korea and Japan.

Dr Hongseok Yang
Dr Hongseok Yang is University Lecturer and EPSRC Advanced Research Fellow in Computer Science. His research interests include programme verification techniques, both manual and automatic, especially techniques for heap and concurrency and the semantics of stateful programming. He has been programme chair for an extensive number of international conferences on computing and programming.

Dr Yang studied for his BSc in Computer Science with Mathematics at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea before being awarded his PhD in Computer Science from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.

Distinguished Korean alumni involved in politics and government include:

• Dr Hak-Gyu Son, former governor of Gyeonggi-do, former member of the National Assemblyof the Republic of Korea, and Presidential candidate in 2012.

• Dr Jin Park, President of the Korea-UK Forum for the Future and former Member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea for the Grand National Party.

A number of Korean alumni are prominent in business and economics, including:

• Dr Myungju Choi, former CEO of GK Partners, former President of the Oxford Alumni Association, and memberof the Presidential Commission on Policy Planning, he is concurrently CEO and President of Kyobo Securities and CEO and President of POSTECH Venture Capital Corporation.

Oxford Korean alumni in academia include:

• Dr Ok-Pyo Moon, Professor of Anthropology and former Dean of the Graduate School, Academy of Korean Studies.

• Dr Kyong-Soo Lho, Professor of Politics and former Dean of the Office of International Affairs, Seoul National University.

• Dr T.Y. Seong, Professor of Nanophotonics, Korea University, and Director of the Optoelectronics Materials and Device Laboratory at Korea University.

For Oxford alumni of all nationalities living in Korea, the Korean Oxford Alumni Society in Seoul is a focal point.