Angela Yoonjeong McClean 

Welcome! My name is Angela Yoonjeong McClean. I am a Korea Foundation Assistant Professor of Korean Politics and Society at Indiana University's Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

My broad research interests include international and forced migration, political sociology, law and society, transnational and global studies, social movements, Asian-American studies, and South Korea.

Specifically, I focus on the interplay between international norms and domestic interpretation/ implementation, and their practical effects on the ground. In my book project, I explore the dynamics and stakeholders involved in the adoption and implementation of refugee protection norms in South Korea, aiming to address the puzzle of the country's exceptionally low refugee recognition rate.

My research has appeared in International Political Sociology and Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, as well as public outlets like 9Dashline and The Conversation. My work has been funded by the Korea Foundation, the Academy of Korean Studies, and the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies (CCIS) at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Associate in East Asian Studies and Lecturer in Sociology at Yale University, and a Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan's Nam Center for Korean Studies. I received a B.A. in East Asian Studies and American Studies (Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa) from Wellesley College, an A.M. in Regional Studies - East Asia from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in Sociology at UCSD, where I was also a San Diego Fellow and a researcher at CCIS. Before UCSD, I worked as Associate Director at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation and as Program Manager at the U.S.-Korea Institute at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C.