My path into research started with a simple curiosity about people — why children think, feel, and relate to others the way they do. That curiosity has carried me from an early childhood classroom to a national policy research institute, and now to a Ph.D. program. In the bigger picture, I hope my work contributes to a more harmonious society by understanding how children develop in relation to the people around them — family, peers, and the broader systems they grow up in.
I was born and raised in South Korea. Before starting my Ph.D., I worked as an early childhood educator at a university-affiliated daycare center (Center for Child Educare Service & Research, Seoul National University), and later as a researcher at the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education (KICCE), South Korea's national policy research institute for childcare and early education. I'm also the first in my family to attend graduate school — a milestone that continues to shape how I approach this work. It wasn't until I began my Ph.D. that I moved to the United States, where I am now a student at the University at Albany, SUNY.
My research centers on relationships — especially between parents and children — and how they shape children's social and cognitive development. I'm interested in parent-child relationships and parenting characteristics, socio-cultural values and socialization processes, and how these everyday relationships support cognitive and reasoning development, including how shifting cultural norms shape development over time. For more on my background, see my CV and Publications pages.