2025 Cohort Next-Generation Korean Peninsula Specialists

Derrick J. Barksdale

Derrick J. Barksdale is an officer in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps. He is currently the staff judge advocate for a patrol and reconnaissance task force in Atsugi, Japan, where he focuses on national security law and administrative law.

Before transferring to the JAG Corps, Derrick served as an intelligence officer. As an intelligence officer, he supported tactical, operational, and strategic commands in Africa, the Middle East, and Indo-Pacific. He has significant experience with the Korean Peninsula, having been stationed and deployed in the region.

Derrick graduated with a B.A. in philosophy from Washington and Lee University, a M.A. in criminal justice from John Jay College, and a J.D. from the University of Kentucky College of Law. He is currently learning the Korean language to deepen his understanding of Korean culture and politics.

His primary research interests are modernization of the U.S.-ROK Alliance and the posture of U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific region. He is also interested in the legal effects of the 1953 Armistice Agreement and Mutual Defense Treaty and their impact on today’s defense strategies of the United States and South Korea.

Joel N. Christoph

Joel N. Christoph is a PhD candidate in Economics at the European University Institute, where he researches international economic cooperation and security policy. His work bridges economic analysis with security studies, focusing particularly on the intersection of economic incentives and conflict prevention.

Joel’s policy-oriented research has appeared in venues including the Atlantic Council, where he authored “Governance Reform of the Bretton Woods Institutions,” and various security policy publications. He has received recognition including the Japan-IMF Scholarship and Harvard Kennedy School’s Technology and Human Rights Fellowship.

Beyond research, Joel founded 10Billion.org, a movement focused on global public goods, and previously led Effective Thesis, supporting students in impactful research. He has contributed to international policy discussions through roles with organizations including the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community and the Atlantic Council’s BrettonWoods 2.0 Fellowship.

Joel holds multilingual capabilities and international experience, having lived and studied across Europe, Asia, and North America. His unique combination of economic training, security policy expertise, and Korean Peninsula experience positions him to contribute meaningfully to policy discussions on regional stability and cooperation.

Nan Hao

HAO Nan is currently a researcher on the East Asia affairs at a UAE-based think tank. His work focuses on the intersection of geopolitics, economic security, and technology policy in Northeast and Southeast Asia.

Previously, Hao served as Political Affairs Officer at the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat (TCS) in Seoul, where he coordinated intergovernmental dialogues among China, Japan, and South Korea. He has also held research and practicing roles at the ASEAN-China Centre, Observer Research Foundation, and the Centre for ASEAN Studies in Thailand.

His publications have appeared in The Korea Times, Nikkei Asia, ThinkChina, South China Morning Post, and The Diplomat, covering topics such as trilateral diplomacy, North Korea’s strategic calculus, and emerging technology competition. He has also contributed to multilateral reports for the Asia-Europe Foundation and China’s National Development and Reform Commission.

Trained in public policy, international law, and Middle Eastern studies, Hao holds degrees from the National University of Singapore, UC Louvain, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is an Arms Control Negotiation Academy Fellow, and Nuclear Futures Fellow; and a member of BASIC Emerging Voices Network, and Valdai Discussion Club New Generation Program.

Hao’s current research explores “Triple Trilateralism” in Northeast Asia, analyzing how the region’s three overlapping trilateral configurations—U.S.–Japan–South Korea, China–Japan–South Korea, and the emerging China–Russia–North Korea alignment—interact to shape the strategic environment on the Korean Peninsula.

Saeme Kim

Saeme Kim is an associate research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. Her research focuses on South Korea-Europe relations, multilateral cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, and middle power diplomacy. Dr. Kim is a non-resident fellow at the Korea Economic Institute of America. She was previously a resident fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and a resident fellow at Pacific Forum International. Dr. Kim received her PhD in international relations from King’s College London, her MSc in international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and her BA from Ewha Woman’s University.

Soo Jung Kim

Soo Jung Kim is a Research Fellow at the Institute of International Affairs at Inha University in South Korea. Her research examines migration governance, citizenship regimes, and postcolonial statecraft in East Asia, with a particular focus on ethnic return migration and the stratification of co-ethnic migrants in South Korea.

Her doctoral dissertation interrogated the legal, institutional, and symbolic logics underpinning Korea’s management of Korean-Chinese (Joseonjok) returnees, arguing that such regimes reflect a dual imperative: harnessing diasporic labor under controlled terms while preserving boundaries of national identity and social membership. Situating the Korean case within broader Indo-Pacific dynamics, her work contributes a comparative lens to the securitization of mobility and the instrumentalization of ethnicity in the region.

She earned her Ph.D. in International Studies, along with an M.A. in Chinese Area Studies and a B.A. in Anthropology, all from Seoul National University. Her scholarly training combines ethnographic fieldwork, critical migration studies, and policy analysis, and she has presented her research at international academic venues such as AAS-in-Asia and the IPSA World Congress of Political Science.

Il Gyu Lee

Il-Gyu Lee is a doctoral researcher at the Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland). Her research focuses on North Korea’s strategic behaviour, leadership dynamics, and nuclear policy across regimes. Using a constructivist approach, she examines how identity narratives and regime legitimation shape the DPRK’s foreign policy and security posture.

She holds an MA in International Relations with a focus on East Asian Studies from the University of Groningen (Netherlands), and a BA in Korean History and Chinese Studies from Kookmin University (South Korea). She also studied Chinese foreign policy and East Asian regional dynamics at Tsinghua University (China).

Her broader research interests include regional security architectures, identity politics, and inter-Korean relations. She has presented her work at the Social Science Korean Studies Network (SoKEN) and the 2025 Political Studies Association Early Career Network (PSA ECN), where she received the Best Paper Prize. She is scheduled to present at the 19th Korean Studies Graduate Students Convention (KSGSC).

Lee aims to contribute to policy-relevant research on peace, deterrence, and long-term security strategies for the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia.

Chris Park

Chris H. Park is a research associate for the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He is a student of strategic studies writing on defense planning and northeast Asian security. Prior to CSIS, he was a graduate research assistant for former deputy director of central intelligence John E. McLaughlin. Chris holds an MA in international relations from Johns Hopkins SAIS and a BA in international studies from Johns Hopkins University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

Ria Roy

Ria Roy is a Kleinheinz Fellow at the Hoover Institution and is a specialist in the history of modern Korea and East Asia. Her doctoral dissertation, which she is currently turning into a book, examined the intellectual and cultural history of North Korea in the context of the Japanese Empire’s legacy, as well as that of the influence of the revolutionary bloc. In particular, she explored the history and development of the leadership succession in North Korea, focusing on the role of intellectuals and their ideas in the generation of the unique North Korean model of leadership. More broadly, she is interested in the interplay between East Asian and European intellectual traditions and how it paved the way for a transition to an illiberal modernity.

Roy received her PhD from the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. She previously received her MA from Harvard University and her BA from Waseda University in Japan.

Juan Pablo Sims

Juan Pablo Sims is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Government at Universidad del Desarrollo, Chile, and a PhD candidate in International Politics at Fudan University. His research centres on the intersection of trade, investment, and security in the Indo-Pacific, with a comparative eye on Latin America’s growing economic ties to East Asia.

Juan Pablo’s policy credentials draw on experience as a trade advisor at Chile’s Under-secretariat of International Economic Affairs (SUBREI), where he supported minister-level trade negotiations. This experience informs his academic work on great power competition and the evolving link between economic statecraft and strategic stability.
His scholarly publications appear in outlets such as Chinese Political Science Review and Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, and his policy commentary is regularly featured in Chilean media.

Juan Pablo holds an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Melbourne and is a PhD candidate from Fudan University.

Alessandro Vesprini

Alessandro Vesprini is a PhD Candidate in International Cooperation and Area Studies at Pusan National University’s Graduate School of International Studies and President of its Student Council. He is also an Honorary Regional Research Associate for the Indo-Pacific Study Center and a peer reviewer for the Journal of Geoeconomics. His research focuses on the intersection of economics and security in the Indo-Pacific, particularly South Korea’s domestic and foreign policies, regional trade, and the US-China rivalry. His doctoral dissertation examines the economy-security nexus of South Korea’s semiconductor industrial policy.