Doctoral Student

Kate's research investigates the intersections of migration, race, and political sociology, focusing on how state-defined markers of citizenship and racial categories influence group identities. She is particularly interested in how refugees navigate questions of identity and belonging across different national and political contexts.

Kate earned her MA in Interdisciplinary East Asian Studies from The Ohio State University, with a graduate minor in Public Policy and Management. Her thesis combined policy analysis and ethnographic fieldwork to examine how national identity frameworks in the Republic of Korea and the United States shape the legal, social, and symbolic inclusion of North Korean refugees. Before graduate school, she worked in the higher education and non-profit sectors, most recently at the University of Michigan’s Nam Center for Korean Studies.