Elaine Lee

Elaine is a sophomore in the College, double majoring in international relations and East Asian Area Studies, and minoring in music. She is also a board member of the Penn East Asian Studies Student Association, political science research assistant for Michael Horowitz, senior staffer for the International Affairs Association, a College of Arts and Sciences peer advisor, pianist with Penn Chamber, and Co-President of Penn Taekwondo. Her interests in Korean studies include geopolitics on the Korean peninsula, role of the US in East Asia, theory behind democratization, and US policy recommendations towards potential Korean reunification. 

 

Ever since a visit to the De-Militarized Zone in 2011, she has been interested in nation-building, the Korean War, the 'Miracle on the Han River,' and nuclear proliferation. In 2014, she participated in Stanford's Sejong Korean Scholars Program sponsored by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, through which she researched economic challenges for South Korea and was selected to present at the 2014 Hana-Stanford Conference about Confucian tradition, chaebols, military spending, the threat of China, and tense US-China relations impeding South Korean economic leadership. In 2015, she worked as a research intern at the UN Global Compact in Korea, on Sustainable Development Goals and the role of corporate social responsibility in Korean businesses. 

 

Following the end of her term as a Kim Program fellow, Elaine will be returning to Stanford University for the summer as a political science research assistant, researching the decision-making procedures of international organizations. Post-graduation, she hopes to attend graduate school in political science and work in policy or academia related to Korea.