Ji-Yeon Jo enrolled at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1999 to pursue a PhD in the School of Education. Today, she is an associate professor and coordinator of the Korean Studies Program in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies within the UNC College of Arts and Sciences. Her research focuses on how migration and cultural exchange shape identity, community, and connections between Asia and people living around the world.

What brought you to Carolina?

After graduating from Carolina with a PhD in education, I spent two years away before returning in 2006 to teach the university’s first official Korean language course.

How has your role here changed over the years?

My roles at Carolina have evolved from graduate student to part-time instructor, lecturer, tenure-track assistant professor, and now tenured associate professor. In many ways, I have experienced Carolina from a wide range of perspectives.

After earning my PhD, I had the opportunity to teach the university’s first Korean language course and soon afterward help establish the Korean Studies Program. In 2019, after being promoted to associate professor, I was appointed director of the Carolina Asia Center (now INSITE: Asia).

During my five-year term, I worked with outstanding colleagues to strengthen the center’s programming, outreach, and national and international visibility. Together, we secured federal funding and expanded opportunities for research, education, and public engagement through conferences, cultural programs, and community partnerships.

What’s kept you at Carolina?

Opportunities and people. Carolina has continually supported meaningful research, teaching, and service.

Building the Korean Studies Program from the ground up into one that now offers both a major and a minor was challenging, especially as a junior faculty member, but it has also been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career. Along the way, I gained valuable experience developing curricula, organizing academic and cultural events, and securing external funding. Those experiences helped prepare me for later leadership roles, including directing the Carolina Asia Center.

While my research has evolved over time, it has been guided by a central question: How does transnational mobility shape identities, memories, cultural practices, and sense of belonging across places and generations? For my dissertation, I examined how experiences across countries and cultures shape Asian American identities, while my first book explored the experiences of later-generation members of the Korean diaspora who moved to South Korea in search of connection, opportunity, and belonging.

I subsequently turned to Korean diaspora cinema to examine how migration, memory, and displacement are represented and remembered through films. More recently, my research has focused on transnational Korean foodways and foodscapes, exploring how food moves and transforms across borders and how histories of migration, colonialism, and globalization become embedded in everyday culinary cultures of South Korea and Korean diasporic communities.

These research and leadership experiences created opportunities to contribute to the field nationally and internationally, including serving on the program committee of the Association for Asian Studies and as a book review editor for the Journal of Asian Studies.

I have also been fortunate to work alongside talented, generous, and deeply committed colleagues across the university. My colleagues in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and the Carolina Asia Center have been especially inspiring collaborators. Whatever we have accomplished has been a shared effort, and I remain deeply grateful for their partnership and support.

Finally, my students have also been a constant source of inspiration. Watching their curiosity about Korea and Korean diaspora grow and seeing them flourish at Carolina and beyond has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my career.

What contribution are you most proud of?

Having played a small part in strengthening Carolina’s engagement with Asia.

That work began with the growth of the Korean Studies Program. When I first sought support from funding institutions in Korean, they knew little about UNC-Chapel Hill. At the time, Carolina had a smaller presence in Korea and elsewhere in Asia than many peer institutions, so I often found myself introducing both the university and the program while building partnerships and seeking support. Over time, the program grew into one of the most vibrant in the Southeast, supported by dedicated faculty, enthusiastic students, and generous partners. Seeing that growth has been especially rewarding.

A second contribution came through my service as director of the Carolina Asia Center. Although much of my term coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, our faculty and staff adapted quickly and expanded the center’s reach through virtual conferences, lectures, and public programs that drew participants from around the world.

Another recent contribution has been cultivating scholarly exchanges with the National University of Singapore (NUS), one of UNC-Chapel Hill’s four international strategic partner institutions. I led the effort to co-organize a successful joint workshop with colleagues from both universities in Singapore in 2025, and I am currently working with colleagues to organize a reciprocal workshop at UNC-Chapel Hill in September 2027.

What is a uniquely Carolina experience you’ve had?

The unique combination of deep roots in the American South and a strong global outlook.

Being at Carolina has shown me that the South presents both distinct challenges and remarkable opportunities for global engagement. While Carolina has historically offered fewer Asia-focused programs than some peer institutions, I have come to see that as an opportunity rather than a disadvantage. It has given us the flexibility to build programs that respond to changing student interests and an evolving world instead of relying on long-established models.

The growth of these programs shows what’s possible. There are still challenges to sustaining and expanding Carolina’s international engagement, and much work remains. But having the opportunity to help shape that growth, and contribute to the university’s local and global future, has been one of the most uniquely Carolina experiences I’ve had.