North Korea Research Group

Professor Joshua Barker

Joshua Barker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology. He is Interim Director of the David Chu Program in Asia Pacific Studies, Undergraduate Coordinator for the Department of Anthropology, and a member of the Board of Advisors for the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies.

Barker received his B.A. from Trent University, his M.A. from SOAS at the University of London, and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. He has taught and conducted research at the Bandung Institute of Technology in Indonesia and has been a postdoctoral fellow at Twente University, the Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), and the Department of Anthropology at Stockholm University (with support from the Swedish School of Advanced Asia Pacific Studies). His research focuses on Indonesia, where he has examined various themes relating to his three main topics of interest: urban studies, crime and security, and new technologies.

Barker currently conducting a multi-year research project funded by SSHRC and the Connaught Foundation. The project is entitled 'Engineers and Political Dreams: Indonesia's Internet in Cultural Perspective.'

Professor Gregory T. Chin

Gregory T. Chin (Ph.D., York University) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Department of Political Science at York University (Canada), where he teaches global politics and East Asian political economy. Dr. Chin is a Senior Fellow of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), and Research Fellow of The Asian Institute at the University of Toronto. He has held a visiting fellowship at Peking University (1997-98). Prior to joining York University in 2006, Dr. Chin served as a diplomat in the Canadian Embassy in China, responsible for Canadian foreign aid to China and North Korea.

From 2000 to 2003, he was Senior Programme Officer in the China and Northeast Asian Division of the Canadian International Development Agency; and a Senior International Affairs Analyst and Trade Commissioner in Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Bureau of North Asia and Pacific Affairs.

His current research includes comparative analysis of international economic integration in China and North Korea, and industrial development in Asian communist transitions. He has recently published in Asian Perspective and contributed chapters in edited books including Globalization and China’s Reforms (Routledge, 2007, edited by David Zweig). Dr. Chin recently completed a collaborative research project for the the International Development Research Centre on the Role of Emerging Donors in Development Assistance.

Professor Ping Chun Hsiung

Professor Hsiung's research interests include feminist theories; feminist methodology and epistemology; gender relations in Chinese societies; women organizing in contemporary china; and international gender politics. An associate professor at the Asian Institute, professor Hsiung teaches qualitative methods in social sciences; family and social change; gender and information technology; and gender issues in the east asian societies.

Professor Ito Peng

Ito Peng (Ph.D., London School of Economics) is an Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, and the Director of Dr. David Chu Chair Program in Asia Pacific Studies at Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. She teaches in areas of comparative social policy, gender and family policy, and health and social policy, with area focus in Northern East Asia, Canada, and Southern Mediterranean. Her current research includes: 1) welfare state responses to post-industrial pressures in Japan, Korea, Italy, and Spain, which compares recent social policy reforms in these countries in response to economic globalization, demographic shifts, changes in family and gender relations, and domestic political changes; 2) political economy of welfare state transformations in East Asia, which looks at how economic globalization is affecting changes in labor market structures and social and economic policy reforms in Japan and South Korea; and 3) immigrant women's health and its policy implications in Ontario.

Professor Peng is a coordinator of Canada-Korea Social Policy Research Cooperation, with research links with Seoul National University, Yonsei University, Korea University, KWDI, KIHASA, Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare, and Foreign Affairs Canada. She is also a member of Social Policy and Development Project with the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.

Professor Don Rickerd

Don Rickerd, Graduate of Queen's University, Balliol College, Oxford and Osgoode Hall Law School. Formerly Master of Winters College, York University and President of the Donner Canadian Foundation and the Max Bell Foundation. Currently Associate Director, Asian Business and Management Program, York University.

Professor Andre Schmid

Andre Schmid (Ph.D., Columbia University) is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of East Asian Studies. His current research interests include the history of the cultural Cold War in the post-Korean War peninsula as well as early twentieth century peasant movements.

He is the author of Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919 (Columbia University Press), winner of the Association of Asian Studies John Whitney Hall award, and has published in journals such as Journal of Asian Studies, South Atlantic Quarterly, and Yoksa munje yon’gu.

Professor David Welch

David A. Welch is a Professor of Political Science and the Director of the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto. His 2005 book Painful Choices: A Theory of Foreign Policy Change (Princeton University Press) is the inaugural winner of the International Studies Associate ISSS book award, and his 1993 book Justice and the Genesis of War (Cambridge University Press) is the winner of the 1994 Edgar S. Furniss Award for an Outstanding Contribution to National Security Studies.

He is the author of Decisions, Decisions: The Art of Effective Decision-Making (Prometheus, 2001), and co-author of The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Concise History (Oxford University Press, 2007); On the Brink: Americans and Soviets Reexamine the Cuban Missile Crisis (1st ed., Hill and Wang, 1989; 2nd ed., Noonday, 1990); and Cuba on the Brink: Castro, The Missile Crisis, and the Soviet Collapse (Pantheon, 1993; 2nd ed., Rowman & Littlefield, 2002). He is co-editor of Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis (Frank Cass, 1998), and his articles have appeared in Asian Perspective, Ethics and International Affairs, Foreign Affairs, The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Intelligence and National Security, International Security, International Journal, International Studies Quarterly, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, The Mershon International Studies Review, The Review of International Studies, and Security Studies.

He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1990.

Professor Joe Wong

Joe Wong (Ph.D., Wisconsin-Madison) is associate professor of Political Science and current Director of the Asian Institute. His current research interests include social welfare, particularly in the area of health care, as well as post-industrial policy such as in health biotechnologies. In addition to publishing widely in academic journals, Prof. Wong is the author of Healthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea. (Cornell University Press).