Teren Sevea joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as visiting scholar and Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellow on Southeast Asia for the winter quarter of 2026. He currently serves as Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at Harvard Divinity School.

He is a scholar of Islam and Muslim societies in South and Southeast Asia, and received his PhD in History from the University of California, Los Angeles. Before joining HDS, he served as Assistant Professor of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Sevea is the author of Miracles and Material Life: Rice, Ore, Traps and Guns in Islamic Malaya (Cambridge University Press, 2020), which received the 2022 Harry J.Benda Prize, awarded by the Association of Asian Studies. Sevea also co-edited Islamic Connections: Muslim Societies in South and Southeast Asia (ISEAS, 2009). He is currently completing his second book entitled Singapore Islam: The Prophet's Port and Sufism across the Oceans, and is working on his third monograph, provisionally entitled Animal Saints and Sinners: Lessons on Islam and Multispeciesism from the East.

Sevea is the author of book chapters and journal articles pertaining to Indian Ocean networks, Sufi textual traditions, Islamic erotology, Islamic third worldism, and the socioeconomic significance of spirits, that have been published in journals such as Third World Quarterly, Modern Asian Studies, The Indian Economic and Social History Review and Journal of Sufi Studies. In addition to this, he is a coordinator of a multimedia project entitled “The Lighthouses of God: Mapping Sanctity Across the Indian Ocean,” which investigates the evolving landscapes of Indian Ocean Islam through photography, film, and GIS technology.

Theara Thun joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as Visiting Postdoctoral Scholar, Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellow on Southeast Asia for fall quarter of 2025. Thun received his PhD in history from the National University of Singapore (NUS), through a joint doctoral program with the Harvard-Yenching Institute (Harvard University). He was the recipient of the 2019 Wang Gungwu Medal and Prize for the “Best PhD Thesis in the Social Sciences/Humanities”. Currently, Dr. Thun is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, funded by Hong Kong’s Research Grants Council. His research interests include intellectual history, ethnic politics, and post-war education, with a particular focus on Cambodia and Southeast Asia.

His first book entitled Epistemology of the Past: Texts, History, and Intellectuals of Cambodia, 1855–1970 is published by the University of Hawaii Press in August 2024. Apart from critically exploring various kinds and forms of scholarly debates of Cambodian, Thai and French intellectuals, the book brings together one of the largest original indigenous manuscript collections ever put together in a single study of Southeast Asian Studies scholarship. It argues that despite the emergence of Western historical writings during colonial encounters in Cambodia and across Southeast Asia, precolonial historical scholarship was never entirely displaced. Instead, the precolonial indigenous scholarship interfaced with the Western model of historical thought, resulting in the creation of a new body of knowledge with its own distinct epistemology.

As a Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford fellow on Southeast Asia, Dr. Thun worked on his second book project which explores post-war intellectual and higher education development in Cambodia. The project seeks to understand how Cambodia’s universities have transformed in relation to society, following the complete destruction of the entire educational system and the massacre of most teaching personnel during the Khmer Rouge regime between 1975 and 1979.

Gavin Shatkin joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as Visiting Scholar, Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellow on Southeast Asia for the fall quarter of 2025. He is a Professor of Public Policy and Architecture at Northeastern University and an urban planner who works on the political economy of urbanization and urban planning and policy in Southeast Asia.  His recent research has addressed: the role of state actors in the emergence across Asia of very large, developer-built ‘urban real estate megaprojects’; the implications of climate change induced flood risk for questions of property rights in coastal cities; and the geopolitical dynamics shaping the ‘infrastructure turn’ in urban policy in large Southeast Asian cities.  His articles have been published in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Urban Studies, Annals of the Association American Geographers, and numerous other journals in urban studies, planning, geography, and Asian studies.  His most recent book is Cities for Profit: The Real Estate Turn in Asia’s Urban Politics (Cornell, 2017). 

While at APARC, Gavin primarily focused on a book manuscript examining the implications of Cold War political legacies for contemporary urban development and planning in Southeast Asia.  The book focuses on three megalopolises—Jakarta, Bangkok, and Metro Manila—that were the capital cities of nations that saw the consolidation (with American support) of authoritarian regimes during the period of Southeast Asia’s ‘hot Cold War’ during the 1960s and 1970s.  The book examines the legacies of Cold War era law, policy, and political discourse in three areas: property rights and land management; the production of knowledge about urbanization; and definitions of urban citizenship and belonging.

Yuko Murase joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as a visiting scholar for fall and winter quarters of the 2025-2026 academic year. She is a journalist with more than 15 years of experience at The Mainichi Shimbun, a major national daily newspaper in Japan that also operates an English-language news site. Yuko has received a Fulbright Scholar Award in Journalism in 2025, becoming the only Japanese journalist selected for that year.

Under the Fulbright program, Yuko is conducting comparative research at APARC on educational systems and practices in the United States and Japan. Drawing on her reporting on education in Japan, including her article: “Preference for 'free schools' over compulsory education stirs controversy in Japan,” she is examining alternative educational models in the United States—such as charter schools and online education in Silicon Valley—to consider their relevance for education policy discussions in Japan.

Yuko has written extensively in both English and Japanese, with a focus on education and social issues. She reported on the tragic suicide of a 13-year-old student in Shiga Prefecture, a case that garnered national attention which led to the enactment of the Act for the Promotion of Measures to Prevent Bullying (2013). Her investigative reporting of harassment within a fire department during and after the COVID-19 pandemic earned the 19th Hikita Keiichiro Award in 2025, bestowed by the Japan Federation of Newspaper Workers' Unions for news coverage that protects human rights and promotes confidence in the press.

After graduating from high school in Australia, Yuko earned a BA in International Relations from Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. She pursued studies in journalism at Rutgers University in the United States and sociology at the University of the Philippines while at Ritumeikan. In 2004, she was selected for the Japanese University Student Delegation to Korea by the Japan–Korea Cultural Foundation.

Eunkyeong Lee joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as a visiting scholar for the 2025-2026 academic year. She currently serves as Research Fellow at the Korea Institute of Public Finance. While at APARC, she will be conducting research on healthcare systems and utilization among the elderly in South Korea.

Soo Chan Choi joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as a visiting scholar for the 2025-2026 academic year. He currently serves as Dean and Professor of the School of Social Welfare at Yonsei University. While at APARC, he will be conducting research on the adaptation of Korean workers to overseas environments, focusing on the Bay Area.

Byongjin Ahn joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as a visiting scholar for the 2025 fall quarter. He recently served at the State Affairs Planning Committee (equivalent to the transition team as President Lee had to assume his post immediately after his election in June).

He is currently a professor at Kyung Hee University's Global Academy for Future Civilizations. He has served as the Rector of the Global Academy for the Future of Civilizations at Kyung Hee University, Vice President of Kyung Hee Cyber University, Assistant Professor of International Relations at Changwon National University, and Lecturer at the City University of New York. Born in Daegu (1967), he earned a B.A. in sociology from Sogang University and an M.A. in political science from Seoul National University. He earned his Ph.D. in American politics from the New School for Social Research, founded by John Dewey. For his dissertation, he was awarded the Hannah Arendt Award.

His main specialty is the U.S. presidency and Korean politics, and he has appeared on numerous television programs and newspapers, including a panel on the U.S. presidential election specials on MBC and SBS and an interview with the New York Times. He has been a regular columnist for the JoongAng Ilbo, Kyunghyang Shinmun, and Hankyoreh, and a guest commentator for KBS. He is a co-author of South Korea's Democracy In Crisis: The Threats of Illiberalism, Populism, and Polarization (Gi-Wook Shin and Ho-Ki Kim Eds, Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, 2022) and many other books and articles.