Ellen Kim

Ellen Kim is Senior Fellow and Director of Academic Affairs at KEI. Previously, she was deputy director and senior fellow with the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Her research focuses on U.S.-Korea relations, North Korea, and U.S.-China strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific. She joined the Korea Chair upon its inception in 2009 and previously served as associate director  and fellow before her departure in 2015. “She is the coauthor of North Korea’s Sea-Based WMD Capability: The Second Leg of the Nuclear Triad (with Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr. and Victor Cha, Bloomsbury Publishing, June 2025) and China’s Weaponization of Trade: Resistance Through Collective Resilience (with Victor Cha and Andy Lim, Columbia University Press, forthcoming 2026).

Ellen holds a PhD in political science and international relations from the University of Southern California, an MPP from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a BA in international relations and Japanese studies from Wellesley College.