Class of 2028

Jieun is a second-career law student at Georgetown Law, building on more than 15 years of experience researching, teaching, and advising on the early stages of democratization in authoritarian states. Her work examines the emergence of high-risk dissent, regime instability, and information access in closed societies, with a particular focus on Burma and North Korea.

Jieun the author of North Korea’s Hidden Revolution: How the Information Underground Is Transforming a Closed Society (Yale University Press, 2016) and Privileged but Powerless: How North Korean Elite Grievances Reveal the Regime’s Greatest Weakness (Yale University Press, forthcoming 2025). Three additional books are under contract, including North Korea’s Provinces: Hidden Layers Beyond Pyongyang (Yale University Press, forthcoming) and a co-authored volume on North Korea’s ICT landscape with Nat Kretchun and Martyn Williams (Columbia University Press, forthcoming).

Jieun’s research and fieldwork have centered on North Korea’s information ecosystem, media flows, and defector networks. She has worked closely with policymakers, technology companies, journalists, and NGOs at the intersection of information operations, dual-use technologies, and human rights in closed societies.

Jieun currently serves as a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative, a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, where she co-convenes an annual course on North Korea’s nuclear crisis with Professor Tom Simpson.

Jieun received my her B.A. and Master in Public Policy from Harvard University, where she also completed her postdoctoral training. She holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the University of Oxford and is a Los Angeles native.

Visit Jieun at www.jieunbaek.com.