CLAS professor elected vice president of the Association for Asian Studies

Hyaeweol Choi, professor and chair in Korean studies at the University of Iowa, will serve in a leadership role for the premier global organization in Asian studies.
Friday, February 10, 2023

By Charlotte Brookins 

University of Iowa professor, writer, and researcher, Hyaeweol Choi will serve as the new vice president of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS). She will automatically become president of the organization in 2024-25 and is the first Korean-born scholar to hold this position in the more than 80-year history of the organization. 

Choi is professor and C. Maxwell and Elizabeth M. Stanley Family and Korea Foundation Chair in Korean Studies at the University of Iowa, and serves as chair of the Department of Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies, as well as founding director of the Korean Studies Research Network. Her role with AAS is a four-year commitment—and she plans to focus on several themes while in the position. 

Hyaeweol Choi
Hyaeweol Choi

“I would like to foster inter-area, transnational, and diasporic studies by cultivating active collaboration not only between the humanities and social sciences but also in the natural, medical, and environmental sciences," Choi says. 

Another focus for Choi is diversity and inclusion.

“I will strive to engage with a broad range of scholars and students to foster AAS as a safe, equitable, and inspiring scholarly society," she adds. Choi also says she feels that in response to a growing demand for timely and relevant scholarship on the critically important issues of our time, we need to cultivate creative and responsible engagement with issues of the day for the public good.

The Association for Asian Studies is a scholarly, non-political, non-profit professional association with approximately 6,500 members worldwide. Founded in 1941, it is the largest organization of its kind. 

Since founding the Korean Studies Research Network (KoRN) in 2019, Choi has overseen and participated in collaborative research in the program that serves as an intellectual platform among scholars and graduate students at the University of Iowa and institutions of higher education throughout the Midwest. This experience, she feels, will aid in her new position with the AAS. 

Choi is hopeful her new role with the association will further develop Asian studies at Iowa, offering more opportunities to facilitate a broader network of scholars and students from around the world. She says she is excited to be the next vice president. 

“I feel that it is the highest honor in my entire career to be elected to this post,” Choi explains. “But I know that this honor is only possible thanks to numerous mentors, colleagues and students who inspired, supported and collaborated with me throughout the journey.” 

The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers about 70 majors across the humanities; fine, performing and literary arts; natural and mathematical sciences; social and behavioral sciences; and communication disciplines. About 15,000 undergraduate and nearly 2,000 graduate students study each year in the college’s 37 departments, led by faculty at the forefront of teaching and research in their disciplines. The college teaches all Iowa undergraduates through the college's general education program, CLAS CORE. About 80 percent of all Iowa undergraduates begin their academic journey in CLAS. The college confers about 60 percent of the university's bachelor's degrees each academic year.