MEMBERS
Emanuel Yi Pastreich, Ph.D.
President
Emanuel Pastreich Pastreich founded The Asia Institute in 2007 while working in Daejeon, Korea.
He writes extensively on culture, technology, the environment and international relations with a focus on Northeast Asia.
Emanuel Pastreich also serves as president of the Earth Management Institute, a global think tank dedicated to developing original approaches to global governance in this dangerous age.
Pastreich served as the director of the KORUS House (2005-2007), a policy think tank operated in the embassy of the Republic of Korea in Washington D.C. and as editor-in-chief of Dynamic Korea an on-line newspaper produced by the Korean foreign ministry. He founded The Asia Institute in 2007 while working as a consultant for Daejeon’s Korea’s IT cluster.
Pastreich has been an advocate for a more rigorous environmental policy in Asia. While in Daejeon, Pastreich helped to found the Daejeon Green Growth Forum, a group of researchers at major institutes dedicated to encouraging environmentally friendly policies in the city of Daejeon and Korea as a whole. The Daejeon Green Growth Forum was made an official NGO working closely with the Daejeon Metropolitan City and also collaborating with the 3E Forum of Tsukuba, Japan.
Pastreich has conducted research projects on technology and its implications for society with the Korea Research Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology, Korea Research Institute for Standards and Science, the Korea Research Institute for Geoscience and Materials, Seoul National University, Center for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology and the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety. In 2010, Pastreich co-founded the Global Convergence Forum, an association of research institutes dedicated to international collaboration in technology convergence. The Global Convergence Forum was later incorporated and works with research institutes on the future prospects for the convergence of technologies. Professor at Sookmyung Women’s University.
Senior Associates
Dr. Lakhvinder Singh
Dr. Lakhvinder Singh is a Chairman of India- Korea Business Forum in Seoul. He is also serving as director of peace program at the Asia institute in Seoul.
He holds two doctorates, one in Korean studies at Sungkyunwhan University in Seoul, Korea, and the other in International Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, India.
He also received a senior fellowship from Harvard University in the Practice of Trade Policy in the United States.
He is also managing editor at the Asia-Pacific Business and Technology Report.
Dr, Singh is a central figure in Korea-India relations and was recently called the “Father of India- Korea Strategic Partnership” by vice defense minister of Korea Dr. Seung Joo Baek as recognition of his work in promoting India- Korea cooperation.
Dr. Singh has more than twenty- five years of experience working in the Korea and is well known in business and academic circles and has more than 300 published papers and articles to his credit, His book on South– Korea strategic cooperation was published in Nov 2014 by Kangnam university press.
Recently he was conferred upon honorary citizenship of Seoul for his leading work in promoting closer ties between two countries.
Daniel Garrett
Senior Associate
Daniel Garrett is a retired U.S. Department of State diplomat. His areas of expertise include human rights, trafficking in persons, Himalayan regional issues, climate change and international transboundary water issues. He is currently working to facilitate the accelerated emergence of innovative ideas and technologies that make it possible for human civilizations and their infrastructures to be seamlessly interwoven in a productive manner into the earth systems which sustain and support them.
Jin Kai
Senior Associate
International Affairs Research Institute
Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences
Jin Kai is an expert on Chinese international relations and columnist for the Diplomat who has argued for the value of close cooperation between the United States and China. He is currently a senior researcher at the International Affairs Research Institute of the Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences (广东省社会科学院国际问题研究所).
Malik Ayub Sumbal
Senior Associate
Malik Ayub Sumbal is a geopolitical analyst, television commentator, and award-winning journalist with more than 17 years of professional experience working with leading media outlets. He has won the Syracuse University Mirror Award for excellence in reporting in 2012 conferred by the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University.
Malik launched the Eurasia Media Network with Eurasia Diary & The Caspian Times, two main multimedia newspapers and production houses located in Baku, Azerbaijan. He has also worked with Gulf News, Al Jazeera, Free Speech Radio News (FSRN), Transterra Media, The Diplomat, Daily Sabah, Asia Times Online, Asia Calling Radio, The Foreigner, iMediaEthics and other journals.
He is currently writing a book on Azerbaijan’s political system and governance. 
Alexander Krabbe, M.D.
Director
Asia Institute of Berlin
Alexander Krabbe is a peace activist, a citizen journalist and medical doctor who engages with a broad range of citizens in Europe to discuss critical issues in international relations. He has worked with the Asia Institute for the last four years and is preparing for the establishment of an Asia Institute in Berlin.
Layne Hartsell, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Research professor in the philosophy of technology: 3E w/biodiversity, history and philosophy of science, open source
Yo Kawanaka
Researcher
Yo Kawanaka is a peace activist and author in Japan who started her activities in the protests against the response to the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. She joined the Asia Institute in 2017 and works there on environmental issues, peace and security, and mental health issues.
Shi Yuefeng
Researcher
Shi Yuefeng is a passionate youth leader active in China and in South Korea. Currently, Shi Yuefeng serves as a researcher at the Asia Institute and as planning director at the SDP (Sustainable Development Program) for Young Global Leaders. SDP is affiliated with the Ban Ki-moon Center for Sustainable Development at Yonsei University, from which he graduated with a B.A. in Political Science and a B.I.S. in Chinese Studies.
Yuefeng has a wide range of interests including international relations, peace studies, Chinese politics, international organizations, and sustainable development. His current research focuses on the development of Chinese think tanks and case studies concerning sustainable development.
Riyad Moosoody
Researcher in Global Security
Riyad Moosoody conducts research on the role of the United States on the Korean Peninsula with a focus of the impact of military conflict on veterans. He has researched the historiography of the Korean War. His areas of study include the Korean reunification, the Cold War and the social, political and economic impacts of the Korean War on several countries across the world. As a researcher at the Asia Institute, he devotes his efforts to considering the ongoing impact of the Korean War on geopoltics and also what strategies may be pursued for future reunification.
Born in Mauritius, Riyad Moosoody studied Law at the University of Strasbourg and U.S. History at the University of Bordeaux and the University of California Santa Barbara. He is fluent in both English and French. He is a member of the War Studies department at Bordeaux University. He has received fellowships from The American Institute and the French Ministry of Defence to pursue his PhD research on the Korean War.
William Wolff
Researcher
Ethics in Education Program
William Wolff has extensive experience in education in China, Japan, Korea and the United States and takes a deep interest in contemporary education practice and policy in East Asia and around the world. He is currently a researcher at the Asia Institute’s Ethics in Education Program where he is preparing a broad range of policy related proposals intended to return education to its original ethical foundations in the context of a rapidly changing contemporary society.
Mariesa Ricks
Researcher
Mariesa Ricks is a senior manager at HealthConnected, a comprehensive web-based platform serving the families of chronically-ill children. Ricks earned a M.S. at the Harvard School of Public Health, where she was actively involved in student government and university-wide student initiatives. As a graduate student, she worked with other Harvard students to launch a nutrition-centric smartphone app and also worked as a graduate student consultant for the management technology consulting firm Endeavour Partners. She received her A.B. in human evolutionary biology with a citation in Spanish in 2008 at Harvard College, where she served as a student leader on many organizational boards.