Sun Young Lee Ph.D.

Sun Young Lee Ph.D.

Sun Young Lee Ph.D.

Elementary Education Program Chair, Associate Professor

School of Teaching and Learning · College of Education

Corbin Education Center 111
Main Campus

Overview

Dr. Sun Young Lee is an Associate Professor in the School of Education.

Academic Interests and Expertise

Education

  • Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Academic Interests

  • Dr. Lee’s award-winning research explores the politics of educational knowledge within curriculum and instruction, teacher education, literacy education, and Asian American education. Using historical, comparative, and qualitative methodologies, her postfoundational scholarship critically engages with the paradoxes in well-intended educational policies and reforms, aiming to promote educational equity and justice. Her current research interrogates two primary areas: advancing transpacific inquiry in education research and critically examining the role of “science” in education reform discourses, particularly within the science of reading reforms.

  • Dr. Lee has received the 2025 Early Career Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Critical Issues in Curriculum and Cultural Studies (CICCS) Special Interest Group, the 2025 Best Paper Award from the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) East Asia Special Interest Group, and the 2025 Outstanding Research Paper Award from the Korean American Educational Researchers Association (KAERA).

  • Dr. Lee has served as the co-chair of the Post-Foundational Approaches special interest group in the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), and her scholarship has been published in leading academic journals, including Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record; Curriculum Inquiry, Journal of Curriculum Studies; Applied Linguistics Review; Language, Culture, and Curriculum; International Journal of Educational Research; Teaching and Teacher Education; Journal of Diversity in Higher Education; Paedagogica Historica; Cultural Studies–Critical Methodologies; and Qualitative Inquiry.

Areas of Teaching Interest

Teaching Interest

  • Culturally and linguistically responsive teaching
  • Curriculum design, evaluation, and assessment
  • Linguistics for elementary teachers
  • Literacy education for elementary teachers
  • Teaching internship & supervision

Publications

Publications

  • 2025 – Lee, S. Y.  Transpacific curriculum history: Undoing the citational practice of global whiteness in education reforms. Harvard Educational Review, 95(1), 28–53. https://doi.org/10.17763/1943-5045-95.1.28 [Paper accepted without revision; Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) East Asia SIG, 2025 Best Paper Award; Korean American Educational Researchers Association (KAERA), 2025 Outstanding Research Paper Award]
  • 2025 – Lee, S. Y. Seeing the brain, scientizing the teacher knowledge: The question of equity in the science of reading reforms. Teachers College Record, 127(5), 152–186. https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681251365057
  • 2025 – So, K. & Lee, S. Y. Humanizing curriculum history: Reflective and diffractive practices of teachers in South Korean education reform. Educational Philosophy and Theory. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2025.2481597 
  • 2025 – Jung, J., Jang, S., Lee, S. Y., & Kim, T.* Reclaiming the translinguistic selves: Collective scholarly practices in translanguaging space. Applied Linguistics Review. https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2024-0299 [*Authorship equally shared]

  • 2024 – Lee, S. Y., Son, M., Kim, T., Jung, J. K., & Jang, S. B. Methodologizing transnationality: Relational writing as collective inquiry. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 24(2), 97-110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/15327086231217225 [Paper accepted without revision]

  • 2024 – So, K., Lee, S. Y., & Choi, Y. (2024). Teachers’ sense-making of the decentralizing curriculum reform policy: A comparative CEDe study in South Korea. International Journal of Educational Research, 125, 102331. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2024.102331

  • 2024 – Kim, T., Jang, S. B., Jung, J. K., Son, M., & Lee, S. Y.* (2024). Negotiating Asian American identities: Collaborative self-study of Korean immigrant scholars’ reading group on AsianCrit. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 17(6), 972–985. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000481 [*Authorship equally shared]

  • 2023 – Lee, S. Y. & Kim, J. Teacher perception of language differences: Challenging the normative futurity and native speakerism. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 36(4), 406-421. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2023.2212171

  • 2023 – Lee, S. Y. & Winandy, J. Scientization of teacher professional knowledges and construction of teaching methods. Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education, 59(5), 958-974. https://doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2021.1983621

  • 2022 – Compton-Lilly, C., Shedrow, S., Hagerman, D., Hamman, L., Chi, Y.K., Kim, J., Lee, S.Y., Papoi, K., Quast, E., Ward, B., Zheng, B. Children in immigrant families becoming literate: A window into identity construction, transnationality, and schooling. Routledge.
  • 2021 – Lee, S. Y., & Winandy, J. Scientization of teacher professional knowledges and construction of teaching methods. Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2021.1983621 [Published online first]
  • 2021 – Lee, S. Y.  Rethinking teacher agency: Cybernetics, action research, and the production of process-oriented rationality. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 53(6), 821-840. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2020.1858451
  • 2021 – Lee, S. Y.  Showing professionalism: edTPA, technology-mediated observation, and visual politics in teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 99, 103234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2020.103234
  • 2021 – Lee, S. Y. Now as a liminal space, writing as a patchwork: Autoethnographic reflections on the self in the middle of the pandemic. Qualitative Inquiry, 27(7), 773-777. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800420960181
  • 2021 – Lee, S. Y.  The embrace of systems in the post-World War Two teacher education research. In Popkewitz, T. S., Pettersson, D., & Hsiao, K-J. (Eds.), The international emergence of educational sciences in the post-World War Two years: Quantification, visualization, and making kinds of people (pp. 149-166). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429060540/chapters/10.4324/9780429060540-10
  • 2020 – Lee, S. Y. Seeing the difference: Anticipatory reasoning of observation and its double gesture in teacher education. Curriculum Inquiry, 50(5), 378-399. https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2021.1877518
  • 2012 – So, K., Kim, J., & Lee, S. Y. The formation of the South Korean identity through national curriculum in the South Korean historical context: Conflicts and challenges. International Journal of Educational Development, 32(6), 797-804. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2011.11.005 [Best paper award]
  • 2011 – So, K. H., Jang, J. K., & Lee, S. Y. Review of the Australian curriculum: Process of the development and features. Korean Journal of Comparative Education, 21(2), 51-73.

Invited Keynotes

  • 2025 – Lee, S. Y. Transpacific studies in education research: How to historicize the present and why it matters as a decolonizing methodology. Advanced Seminar on Research Methodology. Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea.

  • 2025 – Lee, S. Y. The question of equity in the science of reading reforms. School of Education Colloquium. Wichita State University, Wichita, KS.

    2025 – Lee, S. Y. Transpacific curriculum history: Undoing the citational practice of global whiteness in education reforms. 2025 Webinar Series: Best Paper Award. Comparative and International Education Society, East Asia Special Interest Group.

    2023 – Lee, S. Y. Global whiteness as epistemic coloniality: Unintended reverberations of Korean education reforms, from 1945 to the present. Co-sponsored by School of Education Global Education Committee, Curriculum & Instruction Colloquium Committee, East Asin Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI.

    2023 – Lee, S. Y. Job searching as international students: What do I need to do now?. Sponsored by Curriculum & Instruction Colloquium Committee at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI.

Conference Panels Organized

  • 2025 – (A)Historicity in critical posthuman and postfoundational studies in education: Towards educational renewal and reparative futures. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, SIG: Critical Posthuman and Postfoundational Studies in Education, Denver, CO.
  • 2024 – Toward the extralinguistic: New emergences with Foucault’s unpublished writings in educational research methodologies. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, SIG: Critical Posthuman and Postfoundational Studies in Education, Philadelphia, PA. 
  • 2023 – The new sciences of teaching: Theorizing their differences and exclusions. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division B: Curriculum Studies, Chicago, IL.
  • 2019 – How the sciences of curriculum became reasonable: Their emergence in Post-War years and its (dis)continuity. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division B: Curriculum Studies, Toronto, Canada.
  • 2018 – The (im)possibility of methods in curriculum study and teacher education, and its “alternative” investigation. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division B: Curriculum Studies, New York City, New York, U.S.A.

Refereed Papers Presented at the National/International Conferences

  • 2025 – Lee, S. Y. Seeing the brain, scientizing teacher knowledge: Questioning the inclusivity in the science of reading reforms. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division B: Curriculum Studies, Denver, CO.

  • 2025 – Lee, S. Y. Teachers’ Sense-Making of the Science of Reading Reforms: Benefits and Struggles in the Classrooms. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division K: Teaching and Teacher Education, Denver, CO.

  • 2025 – Lee, S. Y. John Dewey and the question of global whiteness: A postfoundational history of transpacific education reforms. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, SIG: Critical Posthuman and Postfoundational Studies in Education, Denver, CO.

    2025 – Lee, S. Y. & Jang, S. B. Cruel optimism in teacher education: Paradoxical hope of making the professional teacher in South Korea. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division K: Teaching and Teacher Education, Denver, CO.

    2025 – Jung, J. K., Jang, S. B., Kim, T., & Lee, S. Y. Interrogating Asianized native speakerism and academic imperialism through translanguaging spaces: From Korean-English bilingual perspectives. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, SIG: Asian American and Pacific Islanders in Education and Research, Denver, CO.

  • 2024 – Lee, S. Y. From dyslexia to the science of reading: How special education and elementary education blurred boundaries. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, SIG: Critical Posthuman and Postfoundational Studies in Education, Philadelphia, PA.

  • 2024 – Lee, S. Y., Son, M., Kim, T., Jung, J. K., & Jang, S. B. Writing as collective inquiry: New possibilities of qualitative research as transnational relational flows. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, SIG: Qualitative Research, Philadelphia, PA.

  • 2024 – So, K., & Lee, S. Y. Humanizing national curriculum history: Teachers’ lived experiences over the national curriculum changes. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division K: Teaching and Teacher Education, Philadelphia, PA.

  • 2024 – Lee, S. Y. Global whiteness as epistemic coloniality: Delinking U.S. imperialism in education reforms through transpacific decoloniality. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, SIG: Decolonial, Postcolonial, and Anti-Colonial Studies in Education, Philadelphia, PA.

  • 2024 – Lee, S. Y. Transpacific curriculum history: Historicizing global whiteness as unintended reverberations in Korean education reforms. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division B: Curriculum Studies, Philadelphia, PA.

  • 2024 – Lee, S. Y. Videorecording the teaching, systematizing the observation: A genealogical study on ocularcentric dehumanization in teacher education. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division B: Curriculum Studies, Philadelphia, PA.

  • 2024 –  Lee, S. Y. Global Whiteness as epistemic coloniality: Delinking the U.S. imperialism in South Korean education reforms through transpacific decoloniality. Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) annual meeting, Miami, FL.

  • 2024 – Lee, S. Y. The science of reading as a curriculum problem: From a teacher educator’s perspective. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing (JCT) Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice, Dayton, OH.

  • 2024 – Lee, S. Y. Transpacific curriculum history: John Dewey and the question of global whiteness. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing (JCT) Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice, Dayton, OH.

  • 2023 – Lee, S. Y. Visualizing literate dis/ability in the science of reading: Untangling the promises of professionalizing teacher knowledge. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division B: Curriculum Studies, Chicago, IL.

  • 2023 – Kim, T., Jang, S. B., Jung, J. K., Son, M., & Lee, S. Y. Negotiating Asian American identities: Collaborative self-study of Korean immigrant scholars’ reading group on AsianCrit. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, SIG: Research on the Education of Asian and Pacific Americans, Chicago, IL.

  • 2023 –  Lee, S. Y. [Highlighted Session] The Cold War, really ended? – Decolonizing the unfinished American imperialism in Korean education reforms. Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) annual meeting, Washington D.C., District of Columbia.

  • 2023 – Lee, S. Y. Seeing the brain, feeling the authenticity: A call for reconsidering the promise of the science of reading for “all.” Journal of Curriculum Theorizing (JCT) Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice, Dayton, OH.

  • 2023 – Lee, S. Y. Global whiteness as epistemic coloniality: Rewriting curriculum history through transpacific decoloniality. Provoking Dialogue(s): Practicing Curriculum Histories: The Space and Time of Theorizing. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing (JCT) Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice, Dayton, OH.

  • 2022 – Lee, S. Y. Seeing through the screen: Historicizing the politics of visual technology in Cold War teacher education. American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division B: Curriculum Studies, San Diego, CA.

  • 2022 – Lee, S. Y. (2022). Dyslexia as language policy: Science of reading, brain-based research, and the raciolinguistic construction of learning dis/ability. Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) annual meeting, Minneapolis, MN.

  • 2022 – Lee, S. Y. Unplannable future, writing during the pandemic: Reconsidering (un)certainty and (un)knowability as epistemic foundations of teacher education. Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) annual meeting, Chicago, IL.

  • 2022 – Lee, S. Y. AsianCrit (Asian Critical Race Theory) and justice teacher education. Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) annual meeting, Chicago, IL.

  • 2021 – Lee, S. Y. Teacher education in tension: Historicizing the bifurcation between justice-oriented education and evidence-based education reforms. American Education Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division B: Curriculum Studies. (Virtual meeting)

  • 2021 – Lee, S. Y. [Highlighted Session] Knowledge in crisis: COVID-19, the im/possibility to plan ahead, and opening-up the other potentials. Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) annual meeting. (Virtual meeting)

  • 2020 – Lee, S. Y. Predictive policing of edTPA: The epistemological ambitions to clearly see teaching through (human intimacy-opted-out) technology. Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) annual meeting, Miami, FL.

  • 2020 – Lee, S. Y. Cybernetic Systems Model for Teacher Education: Historical tracing of teacher education as (national) research project [Paper Session]. American Education Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division B: Curriculum Studies, San Francisco, CA. http://tinyurl.com/svjqvrk (Conference canceled due to COVID-19)

  • 2020 – Lee, S. Y. Future in the present: Post-humanist perspectives on teacher education and its technology. Korean American Education Researchers Association (KAERA) annual meeting, Toronto, Canada. (Conference canceled due to COVID-19)

  • 2019 – Lee, S. Y. Algorithmic governmentality in contemporary education reforms: The politics of datafication, digitalization, and visualization of teaching. American Education Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division B: Curriculum Studies, Toronto, Canada.

  • 2019 – Lee, S. Y. Locating teachers’ vision as part of the system: Troubling the participatory rationale of “action”+“research.” American Education Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division B: Curriculum Studies, Toronto, Canada.

  • 2019 – Sitomaniemi-San, J. & Lee, S. Y.  Historicizing teacher research in teacher education: The CEDes of the U.S. and Finland. American Education Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division K: Teaching and Teacher Education, Toronto, Canada.

  • 2019 – Lee, S. Y. Difference as a curricular problem: The double gestures of multicultural education in South Korea. Korean American Education Researchers Association (KAERA) annual meeting, Toronto, Canada.

  • 2018 – Lee, S. Y. The inscribed (im)possibilities of observation as a “method” in teacher education. American Education Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division B: Curriculum Studies, New York City, NY.

  • 2018 – Lee, S. Y. The digitized archival fever in teacher education: edTPA as politics of memory, temporality and technology. American Education Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, SIG: Critical Issues in Curriculum and Cultural Studies, New York City, NY. 

  • 2017 – Lee, S. Y. Anticipatory teacher: Temporality, utopic future, and its fears. Anticipation 2017 Conference. Senate House, University of London, London, U.K.

  • 2017 – Lee, S. Y. (2017). Disrupting the linearity of time in the practices of teaching. American Education Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, SIG: Critical Issues in Curriculum and Cultural Studies, San Antonio, TX. 

  • 2017 – Lee, S. Y. Temporal dimensions of a biracial child’s identity construction. American Education Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division G: Social Context and Education, San Antonio, TX.

  • 2017 – Lee, S. Y. & Kim, J. Being bilingual: Navigating linguistic binaries and power. Symposium at the Annual Conference of the Literacy Research Association (LRA), Tampa, FL.

  • 2016 – Lee, S. Y. Gendered multiculturalism in South Korea: “Multicultural family” as the hope and fear of nation’s future. International Standing Conference for the History of Education (ISCHE): Education and the Body, 38th annual meeting, Chicago, IL.

  • 2016 – Lee, S. Y. Anticipatory technologies in preparing teachers for “the future”: The CEDe of contemporary American teacher observation system. Preconference on “Merit and achievement as a paradigm: Discourses and practices in a historical perspective.” International Standing Conference for the History of Education (ISCHE): Education and the Body, 38th annual meeting, Chicago, IL.

  • 2015 – Lee, S. Y. Making-up “multicultural family” in South Korea: Globalization, lifelong learner, and gender performativity. 36th Journal of Curriculum Theorizing (JCT) Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice, Dayton, OH.

  • 2015 – Lee, S. Y. Un-naturalizing time and observation in teacher development: Preliminary investigation on “ocularcentrism” in reflective teacher education. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing (JCT) Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice, Dayton, OH.

  • 2015 – Lee, S. Y. Making-up “multicultural” kinds of people: Historicizing the present of multicultural education in South Korea. American Education Research Association (AERA) annual meeting, Division G: Social Context and Education, Chicago, IL.

  • 2015 – Lee, S. Y. Schooling as a mega-machine: Standardization, globalization, and appropriation.  American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies (AAACS), Chicago, IL.

  • 2015 – Lee, S. Y. Deterritorializing teaching. Midwest Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference (MIGC), University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI.

  • 2014 – Lee, S. Y. Teacher participatory governance: Hope and fear. 2014 Teaching and Learning Symposium, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI.

  • 2014 – Lee, S. Y. National curriculum as institutional narrative: From teacher’s storytelling. Comparative and International Educational Society (CIES) annual conference, Toronto, Canada.

  • 2012 – Lee, S. Y. The relationship between competence and knowledge. International Conference on Education Research (ICER), Seoul, South Korea.

Refereed Presentations at the Regional/Local Conferences

  • 2024 – Cramer, K., Franklin, J., Gulley, B., Lee, S. Y., & Thornton, C. Join the professional conversation: Publish your scholarly and creative work with KATE! Kansas Association of Teachers of English Conference, Wichita, KS.
  • 2023 – Lee, S. Y. Hawkins, G., Vanjnar, E., Cole, K., Orchard, B. #OwnVoices, diverse children’s literature, and equity-centered literacy education. Kansas Association of Teachers of English Conference, Wichita, KS.
  • 2022 – Cramer, K., Franklin, J., Gulley, B., & Lee, S. Y. Join the professional conversation: Publish your scholarly and creative work with KATE! Kansas Association of Teachers of English Conference, Wichita, KS.
  • 2021 – Pyle, D. Lee, S. Y., Russell-Stamp, M., Cain, R., Hafen, S., Norman, J., Alexander, M., & Saunders, P. Using avatars to enhance learning outcomes. 2021 Faculty symposium: A teaching and learning celebration. Weber State University, Ogden, UT. 

Other Invited Talks

  • 2025 – Lee, S. Y. Transpacific inquiry as a critical method in education research. Doctoral Seminar on Internationalizing Educational Knowledge. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI.

  • 2023 – Lee, S. Y. Making the neuroscientifically literate child: Untangling the promises of professionalizing teacher knowledge in the Science of Reading. Amplifying voices of AAPI faculty at College of Education, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS.

  • 2021 – Lee, S. Y. Studying “observation” in-between curriculum studies and teacher education. Doctoral Seminar on Reform and Change in Curriculum and Instruction. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI.

  • 2019 – Lee, S. Y. Modeling and disseminating of elementary teacher education: The historical tracing of teacher education as a research project in the postwar periods. The International Emergence of Educational Research as Scientific Enterprise: Comparison, Quantification, and Visualizations in the Post-World War II Years. Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

  • 2018 – Lee, S. Y. Making teachers’ vision as part of the system: Troubling the participatory rationales of observation in “action”+“research” (Discussant: Dr. David Labaree, Stanford University). Theory and Data in Curriculum, History, and Educational Studies: 2018 Doctoral Colloquium. University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.

  • 2017 – Lee, S. Y. Vision, temporality, and teacher-making: The emergence of “scientific” observation in the U.S. normal schools, 1890s-1920s (Discussant: Dr. Johanna Sitomaniemi-San, University of Oulu, Finland). Data and Theory in Curriculum, History, and Educational Study: 2017 Doctoral Colloquium. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI.

  • 2016 – Lee, S. Y. Historicizing the ocular regime in teacher education: Future-oriented governmentality to make a teacher, in the past and the present.  Disrupting Good Intentions of Social Inclusion, a joint research seminar, Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden.              

  • 2016 – Lee, S. Y. “Securing the future?”: Historicizing the linear temporality in contemporary teacher observation system (Discussant: Dr. Rebekka Horlacher, University of Zürich, Switzerland). Theory and Data in the History of Education: 2016 Doctoral Colloquium, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA.  

  • 2015 – Lee, S. Y. Preliminary investigation on “ocularcentrism” in reflective teacher education: Historicizing observation and time as the strategy for teacher development (Discussant: Dr. David Labaree, Stanford University).  Theory and Data in the History of Education: 2015 Doctoral Colloquium, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg.

Professional Experience

Professional Experience

  • 2021-Present – Associate Professor, Wichita State University
  • 2021-2025 –  Assistant Professor, Wichita State University
  • 2019-2021 –  Assistant Professor, Weber State University
  • 2015-2019 –  University Supervisor and Teaching Assistant, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • 2007-2009 & 2010-2013  – Elementary School Teacher, Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education

Awards and Honors

Awards and Honors

  • 2025 – Early Career Award, American Educational Research Association (AERA) Critical Issues in Curriculum and Cultural Studies (CICCS) Special Interest Group

  • 2025 – Best Paper Award, Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) East Asia Special Interest Group

  • 2025 – Outstanding Research Paper Award, Korean American Educational Researchers Association (KAERA)

  • 2025 – Professional Achievement Recognition, College of Education, Wichita State University 

  • 2024 – Faculty Research Award, College of Education, Wichita State University

  • 2024 – University Research/Creative Project Award ($4,500; see also Grants section), Wichita State University

  • 2023-24 – Spalding Faculty Fellowship ($6,987), College of Education, Wichita State University

  • 2022-24 – Korean American Educational Researchers Association Early Career Scholar Program Inaugural Cohort, Korean American Educational Researchers Association

  • 2022 – Tilford Faculty Diversity Fellowship Award, Wichita State University

    2021 University Research/Creative Project Award ($4,500; see also Grants section), Wichita State University

  • 2021 – Hemingway Faculty Excellence Award, Weber State University
  • 2020 – Michael B. Salwen Scholarship Award, Korean American Educational Researchers Association (KAERA)
  • 2018 – Hartzman International Research Award, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • 2017  – John and Tashia Morgridge Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship ($20,500), Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • 2017 – AERA Division B Pre-Conference Award for Sensuous Curriculum: Possibilities and Politics of the Sense in Curriculum Studies, American Educational Research Association (AERA)
  • 2013 – Best Academic Research Performance Award of the Year, National Research Foundation of Korea ,[So, K., Kim, J., & Lee, S.Y. (2012). The formation of the South Korean identity through national curriculum in the South Korean historical context: Conflicts and challenges. International Journal of Educational Development, 32(6), 797-804. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2011.11.005]
  • 2013 – Best Teacher Performance Award (1st runner-up), Seoul Education Training Institute
  • 2011 – Brain Korea 21 Scholarship, National Research Foundation of Korea
  • 2010-2011 – National Research Scholarship (Humanities and Social Sciences), Korea Student Aid Foundation

Grants

Grants

  • 2023-2026 – Co-PI: Strengthening pathways from student to teacher: Filling special education and elementary classroom vacancies. PI: Julie Thiele, Kansas Board of Regents. Accumulated Award $310,000

  • 2024-2025 – PI: Legislating teaching methods: Teacher education policy in the science of reading reforms in Kansas. University Research/Creative Project Award (URCA), Wichita State University. $4,500

  • 2024-2025 – PI: Transpacific sensibilities in the Midwest: A development of a federal grant NEH Institutes for K-12 Educators. CED Mini Grant. $2,000

  • 2023 – PI: Research dissemination at AERA 2024 conferences. CED Mini Grant, Wichita State University. $2,000

  • 2023 – PI: Reparative genealogy: New possibilities of anti-racism qualitative inquiry with history. CED Mini Grant, Wichita State University. $2,000

  • 2021 – PI: Dyslexia as language policy: Exploring the initial implementation stage of Dyslexia Initiatives (DI) in Wichita School District, Kansas. University Research/Creative Project Award (URCA), Wichita State University. $4,500

  • 2021 – PI: Teacher candidates’ understanding of Asian/Asian American students and families in Utah. Hemingway Faculty Excellence Award, Weber State University. $12,269

  • 2020 – Co-PI: Using Mursion® to enhance student learning outcomes in teacher education, early childhood education, communication, and other departments. PI: Dan Pyle, Co-PIs: Peggy Saunders, Jean Norma, Ryan Cain, Melina Alexander, Susan Hafen, & Melinda Russel-Stamp, Weber State University. $19,240

  • 2020 – PI: Competency-Based K-12 education and teacher education: The CEDes of Utah and South Korea. New Faculty Grant, Weber State University. $2,990

Areas of Service

Professional Service Leadership

  • 2020-2023 – Co-Chair, Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), Post-foundational Approach (PfA) Special Interest Group

Journal Editorship

  • 2022-Present –  Column Editor of Diverse Children’s Literature, Kansas English

Memberships

  • American Education Research Association (AERA)
  • Comparative and International Education Society (CIES)
  • Korean-American Education Researchers Association (KAERA)                           
  • Kansas Association of Teachers of English (KATE)                       
  • Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) & ATE Leadership Academy