KONGDAN (KATY) OH

Dr. Kongdan Oh is a Research Staff Member at the Institute for Defense Analyses and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution. She conducts research on North Korean politics and economy, South Korean politics and economy, Inter-Korean relations and unification, East Asian culture and society, and U.S. foreign and security policy toward East Asia.

Dr. Oh was a policy analyst at RAND from 1987-1995 and also consulted for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. She has presented briefings to the Departments of State, Defense, and Energy, as well as other branches of the U.S. government. Before joining RAND, she directed academic programs for the Center for Korean Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

She has taught university courses for the Asian Division of the University of Maryland University College, Dominican College in San Francisco, the Graduate School in International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego, and George Washington University.

Dr. Oh has written more than 50 book chapters, journal articles, and conference papers, in addition to four books and a dozen RAND and IDA monographs. Her most recent publications include the edited Korea Briefing 1997-1999: Challenges and Change at the Turn of the Century (Asia Society and M.E. Sharpe, 2000) and the co-authored North Korea through the Looking Glass (Brookings Institution Press, October 2000). In addition to pursuing her studies of North and South Korea, she is currently conducting research on East Asia's changing strategic landscape and the multinational naval buildup in Asia. She is also co-editing the forthcoming volume of Korea Briefing and beginning work on a co-authored book project on North Korea-China relations in the 21^st century.

Dr. Oh earned a B.A. with a double major in Korean Literature and Oriental History at Sogang University in Korea, and an M.A. in Korean Literature at Seoul National University. She subsequently earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Pacific Basin Council of Dominican University, United States Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, Council on U.S.-Korea Security Studies, and Women in International Security. She is also the Co-Founder and Co-Director of The Korea Club in Washington, D.C. She is married to Ralph C. Hassig and resides in Springfield, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C.