Author: Yurim Oh

Professor Jeong-Ho Roh is the Director of the Center for Korean Legal Studies at Columbia Law School. He was Associate Professor of law at Yonsei University from 2004-2008. He served as legal advisor to the Korean government on the KEDO North Korean Light-water Reactor Project and has visited North Korea on six occasions negotiating nuclear liability protocols for the project. A member of the New York Bar, he worked in private practice from 1988 to 1990 in New York and in Seoul from 1993 to 1994. He served as an officer in the Korean military at the Ministry of National Defense from 1990 to 1993. He presently teaches Geopolitics of Law and Conflict on the Korean Peninsula and Korean Legal System in the Global Economy at Columbia Law School. He holds a B.A. from Seoul National University (1985) and a J.D. from Columbia Law School (1988), where he served as editor for the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.

Jenny Town is a Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center and the Director of Stimson’s 38 North Program. Her expertise is in North Korea, US-DPRK relations, US-ROK alliance and Northeast Asia regional security. She was named one of Worth Magazine’s “Groundbreakers 2020: 50 Women Changing the World” and one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business in 2019 for her role in co-founding and managing the 38 North website, which provides policy and technical analysis on North Korea. Ms. Town is also an expert reviewer for Freedom House’s Freedom in the World Index, where she previously worked on the Human Rights in North Korea Project; an Associate Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), a Member of the National Committee on North Korea, and an Associate Member of the Council of Korean Americans. She serves on the Editorial Board for Inkstick, an online foreign policy journal for emerging scholars. From 2008-2018, Ms. Town served as the Assistant Director of the US-Korea Institute at SAIS. She holds a BA in East Asian Studies and International Relations from Westmar University and a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.

Keith Luse is the Executive Director of the National Committee on North Korea. NCNK is a non-governmental, non-partisan organization that supports and facilitates principled engagement between the U.S. and North Korea in order to promote peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and to improve the lives of the North Korean people. Previously, Luse was the Senior East Asia Policy Advisor for Chairman and later Ranking Member Senator Richard G. Lugar at the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2003 until 2013. Luse also served as Staff Director for Mr. Lugar at the Senate Agriculture Committee from 1999 through 2002, where the Senator also served as Chairman and later Ranking Member. While at the Senate Agriculture Committee, Luse made the first of eventually five trips to North Korea. Mr. Luse joined Senator Lugar’s Indiana Office in 1978 and was appointed State Director in 1982. In the 1990’s while in the private sector, Luse traveled throughout East Asia for eight years, conducting research for U.S. businesses. Luse’s Bachelor of Arts degree in political science is from Indiana University. His graduate certificate in public management and additional graduate studies were obtained at Indiana University – Purdue University, Indianapolis..

Jean H. Lee is a veteran foreign correspondent and expert on North Korea. Lee opened the AP’s Pyongyang bureau in 2012, making dozens of extended reporting trips to North Korea, visiting farms, factories, schools, military academies and homes in the course of her exclusive reporting across the country. Lee is co-host of the Lazarus Heist podcast for the BBC World Service and serves as a public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Michael Barni Barnhart spent 18 years as an intelligence professional starting with Human Intelligence collection doing tactical raids, interrogations, and source operations with regular Army and Special operations. Afterwards, he transitioned to Iranian threats in the Signals intelligence field. He has worked in intelligence collection surrounding nation state threats and underground bunkers and weapons facilities. Barnhart gradually shifted to cyber intelligence at the legislative branch of the government. There his team dealt with DPRK threats targeting the U.S. government. Currently, he is the lead for all of DPRK operations within Mandiant in an effort to maintain the best coverage on this elusive nation state.