Katherine (Kemy) joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as a visiting scholar, Japan Program Fellow, from September 2025 to March 2026. Ms. Monahan has completed 16 assignments on four continents in her 30 years as a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State.  She recently returned from Tokyo, where she was Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Japan, following roles as Charge d’affaires for Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, and Deputy Chief of Mission to New Zealand, Samoa, Cook Islands, and Niue.  She was Director for East Asia at the National Security Council from 2022 to 2023.  Previously, she worked for the U.S. Department of Treasury in Tokyo, as Economic, Trade and Labor Counselor in Mexico City, Privatization lead in Warsaw after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Advisor to the World Bank, and Deputy Executive Director of the Secretary of State’s Global Health Initiative, among other roles.  As lead of UNICEF’s International Financial Institutions office, Ms. Monahan negotiated over $1 billion in funding for children. A member of the Bar in California and DC, Ms. Monahan began as an attorney in Los Angeles. 

Seok Jin Eom joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) at Stanford University as a visiting scholar for the 2025-2026 academic year. He is a professor of the Graduate School of Public Administration at Seoul National University, Republic of Korea, and received his PhD in public administration from Seoul National University. He has published numerous papers in academic journals, including Government Information Quarterly, Public Management Review, Administration & Society, Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, and The Korean Public Administration Review. He also published many books on the history of public administration and policy in Korea and Japan, as well as digital government and AI adoption in the public sector, including The Intellectual History of Korean Public Administration (2025, forthcoming), Enabling Data-Driven Innovation and AI Governance (2025), The Changes and Continuity of Japanese State Apparatus (2015), and others. Dr. Eom serves as the editor-in-chief of the Korean Public Administration Review, one of the most prestigious academic journals in Korea. His current research interests include the intellectual evolution of Korean public administration, public governance in the era of economic growth in Korea, and the evolution of governance in the AI era. (sjum21@stanford.edu; sjum21@snu.ac.kr).

Soo Chan Choi joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as a visiting scholar for the 2025-2026 academic year. He currently serves as Dean and Professor of the School of Social Welfare at Yonsei University. While at APARC, he will be conducting research on the adaptation of Korean workers to overseas environments, focusing on the Bay Area.

Minyoung An joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as Korea Program Postdoctoral Fellow beginning July 2025 through 2027. She recently obtained her doctorate in Sociology from the University of Arizona. Her research lies at the intersection of gender, transnational migration, and knowledge production, combining statistical modeling, computational methods, and in-depth interviews.

Her dissertation analyzes gendered migration patterns in South Korea and among international PhD students in the U.S., revealing how gender inequality in countries of origin produces distinct selection effects and return migration dynamics. She also studies academic career trajectories and prestige hierarchies, exploring how gender and national origin affect integration into global academia.

At APARC, she will be involved with the Korea Program and the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL) as she pursues two projects that extend this research agenda: one using computational analysis of social media data to examine gendered migration intent, and another investigating the academic trajectories and institutional reception of international scholars from East Asia. Through these projects, she aims to advance understanding of how transnational inequalities shape global mobility, opportunity, and inclusion.

Aurelia is an undergraduate student at Stanford studying International Relations. Her background lies in studies of Southeast Asia and Psychology. Her current research interests focus on Comparative International Governance of foreign policy approaches and law reform across the Global North and South. She is serving as a research assistant over the summer of '25 with CDDRL. In her spare time, she enjoys watching musical theatre, cooking, and hanging out with her closest friends.