Hyunjin Deborah Kwak

Assistant Professor

Culture, Interactions, Social Groups, Emotion, Criminal Justice, Restorative Justice, Peace and Conflict

Dr. Deborah Kwak joined George Mason University Korea in Spring 2021. Her PhD is in Sociology and Peace and Conflict Studies. She currently serves as the Program Coordinator for non-major courses (Communication, History, Sociology, Integrative Studies, Anthropology) in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Mason Korea. Dr. Kwak is the recipient of the 2025 Sojourner Truth Faculty Award, granted in partnership by Women and Gender Studies & African and African American Studies: https://wmst.gmu.edu/articles/22001. This award is given to a George Mason University faculty whose scholarship, teaching and activism are at the intersections of race and gender.

The Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning at George Mason University invited Dr. Kwak to be a guest on their podcast, Keystone Concepts in Teaching: A Higher Education Podcast from the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning. In Episode 19: Teaching Inspiration from Mason Korea, Dr. Deborah Kwak and John David McGrew joined the host, Dr. Rachel Yoho, to explore key considerations for teaching at an international campus of a US university, as well as what has inspired them lately. https://stearnscenter.gmu.edu/season-2-spring-2025-keystone-concepts-in-teaching/

Prior to joining the Mason Korea campus, Dr. Kwak was a tenure track Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminal and Restorative Justice at Malone University in Canton, Ohio.

Current Research

Dr. Kwak examines student experiences in U.S.-based international branch campuses (IBCs) and how DEI values and strategies can be operationalized in the IBC higher education context.

Selected Publications

Kwak, Hyunjin Deborah. 2019. “Revisiting Huntington’s Thesis: A Peace Scholar’s Response and Conversations from the Peacebuilding Field.” Christian Scholar’s Review 48 (3): 269-287.

Leguro, Myla and Hyunjin Deborah Kwak. 2016. “Unlikely Partners for Conflict Transformation: Engaging the Military as Stakeholders for Peace in Mindanao.” In Civil Society, Peace, and Power. Eds. Davis Cortright, Melanie Greenburg, and Laurel Stone. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Kwak, Hyunjin Deborah and San Rais. 2016. “Lighting a Candle: Jamila Afghani, Afghanistan.” Pp. 238-281 in Peacemakers in Action, Volume II: Profiles of Religion in Conflict. Ed. Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Summers-Effler, Erika and Hyunjin Deborah Kwak. 2015. “Weber’s Missing Mystics: Inner-Worldly Mystical Practices and the Micro Potential for Social Change.” Theory and Society 44(3): 251-282.

Summers-Effler, Erika and Hyunjin Deborak Kwak, “Where are the Missing Mystics of the Revolution?” Open Democracy, Transformation.Ed. Michael Edwards. Posted 2015

Courses Taught

Introduction to Sociology

Race & Ethnicity in a Changing World

Social Problems

Sociology of Crime and Deviance

Introduction to Corrections

Criminal and Restorative Justice Seminar

Prejudice, Discrimination, and Inequality

Sociology of Gender

Cross-Cultural Experience

College Experience

Social Inequality

Introduction to Criminal Justice

Human Rights and Inequality

Violence: Causes, Dynamics and Alternatives

Education

Ph.D., Sociology and Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame

M.A., Sociology, University of Notre Dame

M.A., International Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Notre Dame

B.A., Political Science and French (Honors), Calvin College