Kathleen Stephens was the William J. Perry Distinguished Fellow at Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center from 2015 to 2017

Kathleen Stephens, a former U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Korea, is the William J. Perry Fellow in the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC). She has four decades of experience in Korean affairs, first as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Korea in the 1970s, and in ensuing decades as a diplomat and as U.S. ambassador in Seoul.

Stephens came to Stanford previously as the 2013-14 Koret Fellow after 35 years as a U.S. Foreign Service officer. Her time at Stanford, though, was cut short when she was recalled to the diplomatic service to lead the U.S. mission in India as charge d'affaires during the first seven months of the new Indian administration led by Narendra Modi.

Stephens' diplomatic career included serving as acting under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs in 2012; U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Korea from 2008 to 2011; principal deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs from 2005 to 2007; and deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs from 2003 to 2005, responsible for post-conflict issues in the Balkans, including Kosovo's future status and the transition from NATO to EU-led forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

She also served in numerous positions in Asia, Europe and Washington, D.C., including as U.S. consul general in Belfast, Northern Ireland, from 1995 to 1998, during the negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement, and as director for European affairs at the White House during the Clinton administration, and in China, following normalization of U.S.-PRC relations.

Stephens holds a bachelor’s degree in East Asian studies from Prescott College and a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University, in addition to honorary degrees from Chungnam National University and the University of Maryland. She studied at the University of Hong Kong and Oxford University, and was an Outward Bound instructor in Hong Kong. She was previously a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.

Stephens' awards include the Presidential Meritorious Service Award (2009), the Sejong Cultural Award, and Korea-America Friendship Association Award (2013). She is a trustee at The Asia Foundation, on the boards of The Korea Society and Pacific Century Institute, and a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy.

She tweets at @AmbStephens.

Sunny Seong-hyon Lee, a journalist based in Beijing, China, is the 2013-14 Pantech Fellow in Korean Studies at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Reseach Center.

Dr. Lee has lived in China for 11 years, including as chief correspondent and later as director of China Research Center of the Korea Times. He served as an internal reviewer of the North Korean reports by the International Crisis Group (ICG) on multiple occasions. A fluent Chinese speaker and writer, he is a frequent commentator on China-Korea relations as well as on North Korea in Chinese newspapers and on TV. He has also appeared on CNN, Al Jazeera, and the Chinese state CCTV.

Dr. Lee taught at Salzburg Global Seminar, gave lectures to members of Harvard Kennedy School, the Confucius Institute, Seoul National University, Yonsei University, Korea University, Tsinghua University, Guo JI Guan Xi Xue Yuan, Korea Economic Institute, The Korea-China Future Forum, the Korea Journalists’ Association, and the Korea-China Leadership Program of the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies.

Dr. Lee will use his Pantech Fellowship at Stanford to write a book manuscript on the latest China-Korea relations, especially since the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. He will also engage Stanford audiences and members of the public through lectures and research meetings.

Dr. Lee received a bachelor’s degree from Grinnell College, a master’s degree from Harvard University and Beijing Foreign Studies University, and a PhD from Tsinghua University, where he completed his doctoral dissertation on North Korea, examining the media framing of North Korea by analyzing the journalist-source relationship. He is also a non-resident James A. Kelly Fellow at Pacific Forum CSIS, and a 2013 Korea Foundation-Salzburg Fellow.

Dr. Lee’s recent writings include:

“Firm Warning, Light Consequences: China’s DPRK Policy Upholds Status Quo” (The Jamestown Foundation)

http://www.jamestown.org/programs/chinabrief/single/?

“Will China's soft-power strategy on South Korea succeed?” (CSIS)

http://csis.org/publication/23-will-chinas-soft-power-strategy-south-korea-succeed

“Chinese Perspective on North Korea and Korean Unification” (The Korea Economic Institute in Washington DC)

http://www.keia.org/sites/default/files/publications/kei_onkorea_2013_sunny_seong-hyon_lee.pdf

“China’s North Korean Foreign Policy Decoded”  (Yale Global Online)

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/chinas-north-korean-foreign-policy-decoded

“Why North Korea may muddle along” (Asia Times)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/NB28Dg02.html

Established in 2004, the Pantech Fellowship for Mid-Career Professionals, generously funded by Pantech Co., Ltd., and Curitel Communications, Inc. (known as the Pantech Group), is intended to cultivate a diverse international community of scholars and professionals committed to and capable of grappling with challenges posed by developments in Korea.

Ling Chen joins the Walter Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) during the 2013-2014 year from Johns Hopkins University where she received her Ph.D. in political science. Her research interests lie in comparative politics and political economy, especially the political origins of economic policies and outcomes in China and East Asia. During her time at Shorenstein APARC, Chen will conduct research on how global firms enabled bureaucratic manipulation of mandatory economic policies in local China. Her research is based on 18 months of fieldwork throughout China and economic census and survey data at both the city and the firm level.

Chen has published articles in The China Journal, Review of International Political Economy, and New Political Economy. A recent article based on her dissertation research has also been accepted for publication by Politics & Society.  Her research has received support from the Social Science Research Council (Andrew Mellon Foundation), Institute for Humane Studies, Fei Hsiao-Tung Foundation, Johns Hopkins University, as well as other institutions.

Chen holds a MA in political science from the University of Toronto and a BA in political science and a BA in economics from Peking University. She was also a pre-doctoral research fellow at Brown University.

Margaret (Maggie) Triyana’s main research interests are inequality and human capital investments in developing countries. In particular, she is interested in the effects social policy changes on children’s health outcomes. As a Postdoctoral Fellow, she will analyze the effects of rural-urban migration in Indonesia and China, as well as the impact of health insurance expansion in Indonesia and Vietnam.

Triyana received a PhD in Public Policy from the University of Chicago in 2013.

Working Papers

“Do Health Care Providers Respond to Demand-Side Incentives? Evidence from Indonesia“

“The Effects of Community and Household Interventions on Birth Outcomes: Evidence from Indonesia”

“The Longer Term Effects of the ‘Midwife in the Village’ Program in Indonesia”

“The Sources of Wage Growth in a Developing Country” (with Ioana Marinescu)

LU Jun joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center during the 2013-2014 academic year from the School of Government of Peking University where he serves as a full professor.

His research interests include urban and regional economics in China; international comparative studies of the spatial distribution of local public goods; and the developmental trends of local public finance. During his time at Shorenstein APARC, Lu Jun will do a comparative research between USA and China of how to eliminate the spatial mismatch effect of local public goods in the metropolitan area. In the meantime, he will collect valuable research materials for his forthcoming textbook of Local Government Economics.

Lu is director of Urban and Regional Management Department of School of Government, Peking University, vice director of Center for Chinese Urban and Regional Study and research fellow of Institute of Capital Development of Peking University. He is the anonymous referee of publication of Comparative Economic & Social Systems, European Studies and World Economics in China.

Other authored books by Lu include The Evolution of Urban External Space and Regional Economy（2002), Fiscal and Financial Policy Instruments in Regional development (2004). He is also the first author of Tax Competition and Regional Urbanization – An Example of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province（2010）and Transformation & Redevelopment of Old Urban Industrial Areas（2011), Study on World cities（2011), and co-author of Spatial Agglomeration of Manufacturing Industry in Beijing Metropolitan Area（2011).

Lu Jun holds a PHD in Urban Economics from Nankai University and an MA in Real Estate Economics from Capital University of Economics and Business, and a postdoctoral researcher of the department of Urban and Environmental Sciences at Peking University.