Staff
Stephen Finch | Editor-in-Chief
Stephen Finch is a PhD candidate in East Asian history at the University of Leeds. He completed an MA in Anthropology with Chinese language at SOAS, University of London, and advanced Mandarin at East Liaoning University in Dandong, China. Stephen’s research is focused on Kim Il-sung, using new and underused Chinese sources, and documents from NARA in the US. His research also includes Sino-DPRK relations, the Korean War, and DPRK political messaging, and has been published in Acta Koreana and North Korean Review. Stephen worked as a journalist in East Asia for 11 years with travel to the Koreas, and has been published in Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, The Independent, and NK News.
Email: [email protected]
Adam Cathcart, PhD | Founding Editor
Adam Cathcart, PhD, is an associate professor at the University of Leeds in the UK. His research interests fall into three broad categories: Sino-North Korean relations, Sino-Japanese relations, and East-West cultural relations. He has been interviewed by the BBC, NPR, and Huffington Post Live, and quoted in the Wall Street Journal and Reuters. His writings have been featured in The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, The Diplomat, and the Daily NK. He is currently working on a monograph examining the impact of anti-Japanese sentiment on Sino-Japanese and Sino-American relations during the Chinese Civil War and the Korean War.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @adamcathcart
Yujin Lim, PhD | Senior Analyst
Yujin Lim holds a PhD from the University of Leeds, where her research explored the role of small states within regional security dynamics and Cold War geopolitics. She previously served as an International Affairs and Security Analyst for the South Korean government, and worked as a researcher at the European Institute for Asian Studies in Brussels. Yujin earned an MA in Political Strategy and Communication, specializing in International Conflict and Security, from the University of Kent. Her work spans a wide range of issues, including national and human security, and political communication.
Email: yujinlimm@gmail.com
Anthony Rinna | Senior Analyst
Anthony specializes in DPRK’s role in Eurasian geopolitics with a recent focus on the Ukraine conflict and the revival of Moscow’s relations with Pyongyang. A widely-published scholar, his analyses have been featured on CNN and in the Wall Street Journal, and have been sought by the US Department of State and the Pentagon. He has resided in South Korea since 2014, and is fluent in both Korean and Russian languages. Anthony contributes scholarly research on North Korea-Russia relations to East Asia Forum, and Sino-NK, among other research platforms.
Email: [email protected]
Anqi Gao | Analyst
Anqi (Angie) Gao is a PhD candidate in Chinese and Korean History at the University of Leeds. Her research interests lie at the intersection of migration, border studies, state policy, gender, and agency. Her doctoral dissertation examines how women on the Sino-Korean borderland exercised agency, using migration to navigate hardships in the 1950s and 1960s. She has presented research at international conferences including those of the Association for Asian Studies, and the International Society for Korean Studies. Recent work has expanded into Japan’s colonial governance over Koreans in Manchuria after the Mukden Incident of 1931.
Email: [email protected]/ [email protected]
Steven Denney, PhD | Director of Research
Steven Denney is an assistant professor at the Institute for Area Studies at Leiden University, and a former Asian Institute Doctoral Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto where he completed his PhD in the Department of Political Science. With a core research interest in the relationship between institutions and preferences, Steven’s research focuses on variations in identity, attitudes, and behaviours in post-autocratic and transitional societies. He has an MA in Global Affairs and Policy from Yonsei University, and holds a primary interest in Korean politics and society, and the political economy of Northeast Asia.
Email: [email protected] | Twitter: @StevenDenney86.
Christopher Green, PhD | Editor-at-large
Christopher Green, PhD, is an assistant professor in Korean Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He is the former Manager of International Affairs for Daily NK in Seoul and Korean Penisula program director at International Crisis Group. His research interests span the socio-political economy, ideology and mediascape of the two Koreas, and the multi-faceted impact of inter-Korean division. His writings have been featured in The Guardian, Al Jazeera, World Politics Review, Asia Times, Asia Sentinel, and NKnews. He has been interviewed by NPR, the BBC, Sky News, Reuters, CNN, and a great many others.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @Dest_Pyongyang
George Robertson | Diplomatic Editor
George Robertson is a postgraduate student studying an MA in Chinese Studies and Intensive Language (Mandarin) at SOAS, University of London. He completed his undergraduate degree in History at the University of Leeds, with a dissertation on continuity and change in narratives of resilience and re-education within PRC rhetoric and propaganda. His research interests include state rhetoric and propaganda, the politics of memory (particularly in cinema), re-education programs, and media narratives.
Email: [email protected]
Eliza Betts | Social Media Editor
Eliza Betts is a BA International History and Politics graduate from the University of Leeds. Her research interests include Sino-North Korean relations, NGO and Human Rights advocacy work on the Chinese-North Korean border, and gender histories in the East Asian region. She recently completed a dissertation focusing on exploitation within North Korean migration networks, and is also working as a reporter for Sino-NK.
Email: [email protected]
