Hello. I am Kadir Jun Ayhan, a mixed-methods researcher and policy analyst with expertise in Korean and Turkish foreign policy, diplomacy, public diplomacy, and international education. I have offered my expertise in academic, public, and nonprofit settings.
With over 14 years of experience leading research projects, I have secured grants and consulted for government and international organization clients including the Korean Presidency, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Korea Foundation, and UNESCO Korean National Commission.
I had the privilege of serving as a member of the Korean Presidential Transition Panel in 2022, and as a member of a presidential special committee on immigration in 2023. Additionally, I served as a member of Korea Foundation Steering Advisory Committee for Empowerment of Cultural Exchanges and Cooperation between 2021 and 2023. I am also the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Public Diplomacy.
I have published 3 edited volumes, 25 journal articles, 14 book chapters employing surveys/ experiments with 6000+ participants, in-depth interviews with 30+ participants.
I am passionate about generating and analyzing unique datasets, having built extensive datasets on American and Korean diplomacy by extracting quantitative and textual data from published reports. Check out my Github for my R packages and novel datasets.
I earned my Ph.D. and master’s in International Studies with a focus on diplomacy and East Asian Studies from Seoul National University in 2016. Prior to that, I completed my Bachelor of Commerce in Economics and International Trade at the University of Auckland in 2008.
I am based in Washington D.C.