I am a doctoral candidate in the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University (fields: North American Religions & History) and a Graduate Student Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. I am a religious historian of modern America with a particular emphasis on 'MBC' (migration, borders, and citizenship), Asian America, and US imperialism. My research interests and writings range broadly—from the religious dimensions of U.S. immigration policy (historical and contemporary), Asian American religious history, and religion's intersections with U.S. imperialism in the Asia-Pacific, to the interplay of religion, race, and class in the transpacific making of modern meritocracy. More details on my previous and on-going research and writings can be found in the Research section of this website.

My dissertation, “Sacred Borders, Divine Hierarchies: American Liberal Protestants, US Immigration Policymaking, and Un/Making of the Asian Exclusion Era, 1882-1924," is a historical study of the religious-moral dimensions of U.S. immigration policies. It argues that early Asian immigration restrictions were not merely legislative or economic projects but deeply moral and theological endeavors. Centering religion in immigration policymaking between the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Immigration Act of 1924, I show how American liberal Protestants helped craft racially restrictive and religiously coded immigration laws, translating their theological and cultural commitments into state policy. By foregrounding how what I call ‘moral policing’ and religious gatekeeping became central to broader exclusionary frameworks, the project reveals the ways in which religious actors and rhetoric redefined legal and popular categories of immigrant worthiness, embedding distinctions between the "deserving" and "undeserving"—and between the assimilable and the unassimilable—within a broader moral-political framework of immigration restrictions. I expect to complete my dissertation in Spring 2026, with Catherine Brekus (chair), David F. Holland, and Erika Lee serving on my dissertation committee.

Alongside the dissertation, I’m currently writing a chapter on the “Diaspora” for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Asian American Religions edited by Melissa Borja, Helen Jin Kim, and Justin Tse.

For the 2025–26 academic year, my research is generously supported by the Rockefeller Archive Center, the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative's Research Grant, and the Weatherhead Center Canada Program's Dissertation Research Fellowship, as well as the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs' Dissertation Completion Fellowship.

My work has been supported by a range of internal and external fellowships, grants, and academic organizations. At Harvard, I have been awarded support from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Harvard-Weatherhead Research Cluster on Migration, the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, the Korea Institute, and the John L. Loeb Fellowship. Externally, my research has been funded by the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Rockefeller Archive Center, the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative, the American Academy of Religion, and the Organization of American Historians, among others.

At Harvard, I have worked closely with the Committee on Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights (EMR) where I served as a coordinator of the Asian American Pacific Islander Studies Working Group and as a member of the Student Advisory Council.

I hold an MTS in Religion and Social Sciences from Harvard Divinity School. Prior to arriving at Harvard, I received a BA in Sociology and Theology and a ThM in History of Christianity from Yonsei University, Seoul. In addition to my academic interests–and frequently integrating with them– I am also a composer and music producer, writing original music for independent, non-profit documentaries.