2020-2021 U.S.-Asia Predoctoral Fellows

Justin Canfil is a postdoctoral fellow with the Belfer Center at the Harvard University. His research focuses on the impact of emerging technologies on international law and international security. He received his PhD from the Department of Political Science at Columbia University.

Adam Frost is a postdoctoral fellow at the Copenhagen Business School Department of Management, Politics, and Philosophy. He received his PhD from Harvard University in the department of History and East Asian Languages, who researches the history of entrepreneurship in modern China. His dissertation, “Speculators and Profiteers: Capitalism and Entrepreneurship in Socialist China (1957-1980),” uses unconventional historical methods and sources to explore the entrepreneurial origins of China’s economic transformation. Adam received his BA and MA from Harvard University and was a visiting scholar at Fudan University. His research has been supported by the Institution of International Education (Fulbright), the Social Science Research Council, the US Department of Education (FLAS Grant), Harvard Business School, Harvard’s Fairbank and Asia Centers, the Institute of Humane Studies, and the Mercatus Institute at George Mason. In addition to conducting traditional archival research, Adam also draws heavily upon ethnography and oral history; recently he completed an ethnographic documentary on the everyday lives of beggars entitled, The End of Bitterness.

Ellen Kim received her PhD in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California. Previously, she was Associate Director of the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Relations (CSIS), where she was also a Fellow. Her research interests are East Asian security, US grand strategy in Asia, and international political economy. Her latest publication Between a Rock and a Hard Place: South Korea’s Strategic Dilemmas with China and the United States, coauthored with Victor Cha, was published in Asia Policy. She holds a BA in international relations and Japanese studies from Wellesley College and an MPP from Harvard Kennedy School.

Nayoung Lee is a PhD candidate in the USC Political Science and International Relations (POIR) program. Her research interests lie in international security, history, and the cause of war with a regional focus on East Asia. She is also an academic mentor for the USC Korean Studies Institute’s Undergraduate Fellow (KSI Fellows) Program. She is a graduate of Yonsei University (BA) and Seoul National University (MA).

Bridget Martin is a postdoctoral fellow in Korean Studies in the Social Sciences at the Harvard Korea Institute. She received her PhD in Geography at UC-Berkeley. Her research focuses on militarism and urbanism in South Korea. She is interested in how the symbolic and material significance of the US military base system in South Korea has evolved from 1945 into the present moment, especially in relation to urban development and city branding. She studies how local governments, urban planners, and local residents accommodate, resist, and transform US military infrastructures as a part of the urban landscape.

Kyuri Park is a PhD candidate in the Political Science and International Relations program at the University of Southern California. Her research focuses on the variations in security cooperation patterns in the Asia-Pacific along with the rise of China. Kyuri is particularly interested in increasing security cooperation activities in the region and its implications for regional peace and stability, and the US and China’s grand strategy toward Asia. Kyuri is also a recent (2019-2020) alumna of the US-Asia Grand Strategy Predoctoral Fellow program at the USC Korean Studies Institute (KSI). She received her MA in Asian Studies at Georgetown University and her BA in International Relations from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea.

Stuart Pike is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research interests include international relations theory, the politics of science and technology policy, and the role of status in shaping national innovation agendas.  Prior to moving to Los Angeles, Stuart received a Master’s in Foreign Service at Georgetown University, taught English at a South Korean public school, and graduated summa cum laude from Boston College.