The sense of assist and neighborhood was palpable when Sojun Park, a postdoc on the MIT Middle for Worldwide Research (CIS), delivered a current presentation on The World Diffusion of AI Applied sciences and Its Political Drivers. The occasion, a part of the CIS World Analysis and Coverage Seminar, stuffed the venue with viewers members from throughout MIT.
“My work is immediately linked to what CIS college have beforehand achieved on worldwide commerce and safety,” Park stated afterwards. “If I hadn’t acquired a postdoctoral fellowship and are available to MIT, I wouldn’t have been capable of assume by the safety implications of my mental property analysis. I’ve been tremendously motivated by these students.”
Park’s time at CIS has been each grounding and transformative, providing him a scholarly house that has formed his analysis and helped broaden his mental horizons.
Pursuing interdisciplinary analysis and connections
Earlier than pursuing a tenure-track place, Park set his sights on conducting analysis at MIT. When he got here throughout a public posting in regards to the CIS Postdoctoral Affiliate Program, he took an opportunity and utilized.
“My very own analysis is interdisciplinary, and I knew that I may actually profit from the interdisciplinary surroundings at MIT, and particularly at CIS, the place college are coming not solely from political science, but in addition affiliated with the Division of Economics and MIT Sloan [School of Management],” he says.
Park was thrilled to obtain the paid fellowship, which presents a tutorial 12 months at MIT and devoted workplace house at CIS. At MIT, he’s free to make use of his time towards his personal analysis, and has discovered worth in pursuing matters which might be of curiosity to the CIS neighborhood — whether or not it’s AI or international governance. He’s revealed prolifically alongside the way in which, together with two articles within the Assessment of Worldwide Organizations and the Assessment of Worldwide Political Financial system.
He’s additionally continued to work on his forthcoming e book, “From Privilege to Prosperity: Data Diffusion and the World Governance of Mental Property,” which examines how applied sciences could be transferred legitimately throughout borders. “By ‘legitimately,’ I’m asking below what circumstances would corporations volunteer to share their applied sciences? I’m all for establishments and institutional environments that enable giant companies to share their applied sciences with smaller companies based mostly within the growth world that will not possess the flexibility to give you their very own applied sciences,” he explains.
Through the spring 2026 semester, he’s collaborating with the middle’s Undergraduate Fellows Program. This program allows postdocs to work on their analysis tasks with MIT undergraduates. Park is working with two CIS undergraduate fellows to develop a brand new dataset analyzing worldwide commerce in inexperienced applied sciences. This chance reconnects Park to his early tutorial experiences in South Korea that set him on the trail to MIT.
Path to MIT
“College students in South Korea are skilled to be problem-solvers,” explains Park, who was born and raised in Seoul. The nation’s rigorous faculty entrance exams reward those that can reply probably the most questions rapidly and precisely in a restricted period of time.
Whereas taking a take a look at in highschool, Park stumbled over a query that he couldn’t reply, no matter how a lot time he spent concentrating on it. He handed within the examination, however took the issue house and spent hours puzzling over it — he simply couldn’t let it go. “In hindsight, I see this because the second I made a decision that I needed to turn into a scholar,” Park says.
Whereas majoring in worldwide research and economics (statistics) at Korea College, he had the chance to take part in a semester-long change program on the College of Texas at Austin. There, Park enrolled in a political science course on sport principle that explored how particular person state actors’ selections influenced each other’s selections and outcomes in commerce, battle, and diplomacy. The teacher used the continued conflict between North and South Korea as a case research, demonstrating the distinctive circumstances for escalation or de-escalation relying upon how the important thing actors made selections alongside the way in which.
“I noticed for the primary time how quantitative strategies could possibly be utilized to worldwide relations and political financial system,” Park says — and he knew that his subsequent step was going to be graduate work in the USA. He started a joint MA and PhD program in political science at Princeton College the next 12 months, supported by a Fulbright Fellowship.
Park’s 2025 dissertation examined the worldwide governance of mental property rights — and it was well timed. He started his PhD program in 2018, “the purpose at which the U.S. and China commerce conflict had simply begun.” Through the pandemic, he was moved by the continued debates relating to vaccine inequality. “I noticed then that mental property was on the heart of those international financial challenges.” With little political science analysis on the subject, he “got down to create a systemic framework” to review it.
Concurrently, he served as a educating assistant in undergraduate programs in statistical evaluation and realized that he deeply loved the expertise of educating and interacting with college students. It was a really completely different expertise from his personal faculty years.
“In South Korea, it’s frequent for the educational surroundings to be one during which the professor simply delivers lectures, however I discovered that in the USA’ increased schooling system, the classroom is actually interactive. I realized one thing from every of my college students.” Quickly, Park was sure that he not solely needed to construct a profession in tutorial analysis, but in addition a future that closely included educating and mentoring college students.
Earlier than graduating, he spent a 12 months at Georgetown College as a predoctoral fellow affiliated with the Mortara Middle for Worldwide Research. This expertise enabled him to discover the coverage implications of his analysis and have interaction with policymakers in Washington — abilities he’ll draw on in his new place.
Lasting classes from CIS
Park just lately accepted a place as assistant professor on the Nationwide College of Singapore. Starting fall 2026, he shall be educating graduate college students affiliated with the varsity of public coverage — most of whom can have profession expertise as practitioners within the public or non-public sectors.
He’ll take many classes from MIT to his new tutorial house, he says. “Primarily based on what I realized in the USA, I’ll make the educational surroundings within the graduate programs I train rather more interactive and collaborative.”
At CIS, Mihaela Papa, director of analysis and principal analysis scientist, and Evan Lieberman, the middle’s director and professor of political science, linked Park to related college whose analysis pursuits have been associated together with his personal. “Assembly with all of those students whose analysis relates not directly to mental property rights made me take into consideration how my very own pursuits can develop to different matters,” Park explains.
However the greatest takeaway of all is that he realized tips on how to share his personal analysis with students who research unfamiliar matters, to change concepts and uncover commonality. “I’ll by no means cease utilizing the communication abilities that I obtained right here at MIT,” Park says.
