Welcome!

I am a 5th-year Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Irvine. I am a social psychologist studying group psychology and subjective well-being from ecological and evolutionary perspectives. More specifically, my research interests are mainly in exploring how people manage life in groups considering the costs and benefits of group belonging under different ecological conditions, and how it helps explain people’s sense of well-being. I am primarily working with Dr. Oliver Sng to conduct research addressing a range of topics such as:

• How ecology shapes predictors of subjective well-being
• How ecology shapes behavioral outcomes of life (dis)satisfaction
• How ecology shapes ingroup boundaries (i.e., whom people count as their ingroup)
• How ecology shapes culture

Tracking back to earlier days in my academic journey, I received my B.A. and M.A. in Psychology from Yonsei University under the advice of Dr. Eunkook Mark Suh. During my master’s degree, I studied the relationship between happiness and human prosociality from an evolutionary perspective, showing that happier people help strangers more because they see strangers as more similar to their family relatives than less happy people do.

In my free time, I love spending time in nature and sometimes going wildlife watching. I also love watching movies and nature documentaries. I especially love watching my favorite movies/documentaries multiple times!

Education

Ph.D. Candidate in Psychological Science (UC Irvine; 2020 - Present)
M.A. in Psychology (Yonsei University; 2016 - 2018)
B.A. in Psychology (Yonsei University; 2012 - 2016)