The sense of assist and neighborhood was palpable when Sojun Park, a postdoc on the MIT Heart for Worldwide Research (CIS), delivered a latest presentation on The International Diffusion of AI Applied sciences and Its Political Drivers. The occasion, a part of the CIS Global Research and Policy Seminar, stuffed the venue with viewers members from throughout MIT.
“My work is instantly related to what CIS school have beforehand executed on worldwide commerce and safety,” Park mentioned afterwards. “If I hadn’t acquired a postdoctoral fellowship and are available to MIT, I wouldn’t have been in a position to assume by means of 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 residence 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 concerning the CIS Postdoctoral Associate Program, he took an opportunity and utilized.
“My very own analysis is interdisciplinary, and I knew that I might actually profit from the interdisciplinary atmosphere at MIT, and particularly at CIS, the place school are coming not solely from political science, but additionally affiliated with the Division of Economics and MIT Sloan [School of Management],” he says.
Park was thrilled to obtain the paid fellowship, which affords an educational yr at MIT and devoted workplace area 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 are of curiosity to the CIS neighborhood — whether or not it’s AI or world 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 International Governance of Mental Property,” which examines how applied sciences might be transferred legitimately throughout borders. “By ‘legitimately,’ I’m asking underneath what circumstances would companies volunteer to share their applied sciences? I’m eager about establishments and institutional environments that permit massive companies to share their applied sciences with smaller companies based mostly within the improvement world that won’t possess the flexibility to provide you with 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 initiatives with MIT undergraduates. Park is working with two CIS undergraduate fellows to develop a brand new dataset inspecting worldwide commerce in inexperienced applied sciences. This chance reconnects Park to his early educational experiences in South Korea that set him on the trail to MIT.
Path to MIT
“College students in South Korea are educated to be problem-solvers,” explains Park, who was born and raised in Seoul. The nation’s rigorous school entrance exams reward those that can reply essentially the most questions shortly 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 residence 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 wished to grow to be 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 trade program on the College of Texas at Austin. There, Park enrolled in a political science course on sport idea that explored how particular person state actors’ choices influenced each other’s decisions and outcomes in commerce, battle, and diplomacy. The trainer used the continuing warfare between North and South Korea as a case examine, demonstrating the distinctive circumstances for escalation or de-escalation relying upon how the important thing actors made decisions alongside the way in which.
“I noticed for the primary time how quantitative strategies might 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 yr, 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 warfare had simply begun.” Through the pandemic, he was moved by the continuing debates concerning vaccine inequality. “I spotted then that mental property was on the heart of those world 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 school years.
“In South Korea, it’s widespread for the educational atmosphere to be one by which the professor simply delivers lectures, however I discovered that in the USA’ greater schooling system, the classroom is really interactive. I discovered one thing from every of my college students.” Quickly, Park was sure that he not solely wished to construct a profession in educational analysis, but additionally a future that closely integrated educating and mentoring college students.
Earlier than graduating, he spent a yr at Georgetown College as a predoctoral fellow affiliated with the Mortara Heart for Worldwide Research. This expertise enabled him to discover the coverage implications of his analysis and have interaction with policymakers in Washington — expertise 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 can be educating graduate college students affiliated with the college of public coverage — most of whom may have profession expertise as practitioners within the public or non-public sectors.
He’ll take many classes from MIT to his new educational residence, he says. “Based mostly on what I discovered in the USA, I’ll make the educational atmosphere 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, related Park to related school whose analysis pursuits had been associated together with his personal. “Assembly with all of those students whose analysis relates indirectly to mental property rights made me take into consideration how my very own pursuits can broaden to different matters,” Park explains.
However the greatest takeaway of all is that he discovered how one can share his personal analysis with students who examine unfamiliar matters, to trade concepts and uncover commonality. “I’ll by no means cease utilizing the communication expertise that I obtained right here at MIT,” Park says.
