2025 SHERMAN FAMILY KOREA EMERGING SCHOLAR LECTURE
Reframing Suicide as a Shared Social Responsibility in Korea
Dr Peter Na
HYBRID Program
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2025 | 4:30 PM (EST)
The Korea Society is pleased to announce that the ninth annual Sherman Family Korea Emerging Scholar Lecture Awardee is Dr Peter Na, assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. In his lecture, Reframing Suicide as a Shared Social Responsibility in Korea, he casts suicide not as an individual failure or “extreme choice (극단적 선택),” but as a systemic and cultural crisis requiring a coordinated national response. Drawing on his experience as a psychiatrist, public health researcher, and mental health advocate, Dr. Na examines the scale and societal costs of suicide in Korea and analyzes key structural drivers such as academic and workplace pressures, poverty and isolation among older adults, and the pervasive stigma surrounding mental illness and treatment.
A central theme is how stigma has sustained silence, denial, and policy inertia. Dr. Na shares his efforts to challenge euphemistic language and foster open public dialogue, while proposing an interdisciplinary roadmap inspired by global models that integrate public health, education, and social welfare reforms. Further, he highlights the Korean diaspora’s potential role in breaking taboos and advancing cultural and policy change, underscoring that suicide prevention must be embraced as a collective, societal responsibility.
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The Korea Society
350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor
New York, NY 10017
About the Speaker:
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Dr. Peter Na is an addiction psychiatrist and assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. His research explores how social and environmental factors shape addiction and suicidal behavior. Deeply committed to the well-being of Korean Americans, he serves as medical director of the Korean Community Services of Metropolitan New York’s mental health clinic—the only nonprofit clinic in New York dedicated to this community—and received the organization’s Community Leader Award for his service. In South Korea, where suicide rates remain the highest among OECD nations, Dr. Na has been a leading advocate for evidence-based suicide prevention and mental health reform, featured in The Guardian, TIME, and the BBC. |
About the Award:
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The Sherman Family Korea Emerging Scholar Lecture Award was established in 2017 through the generous support of Mr. and Mrs. Philp Sherman and family. Its primary goal is to encourage U.S. thought leadership on Korea among a new generation. The annual award competition opens in early spring and the lecture is hosted in-person at the Society and streamed virtually in the fall of each year. The award is presented across disciplines to emerging thought leaders from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds working in the U.S. Click here for further information on the application process. |
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