Bio and Resume
BIO
BIO: Jieun Baek is an author and scholar whose work examines authoritarian governance, regime stability, elite political behavior, and information access in closed societies, with particular focus on North Korea and Burma. She is currently a J.D. candidate at Georgetown University Law Center and will be a 2027 summer associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in Washington, DC. Her research draws on extensive, in-depth fieldwork and engagement with hard-to-reach populations, including defectors, dissidents, and individuals operating within and across tightly controlled political systems.
She is the author of North Korea’s Hidden Revolution: How the Information Underground Is Transforming a Closed Society (Yale University Press, 2016) and Privileged but Powerless: How North Korean Elite Grievances Reveal the Regime’s Greatest Weakness (Yale University Press, 2026). She was a contributing author for North Korean Human Rights: Activists and Networks (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Her forthcoming books include North Korea’s Provinces: Hidden Layers Beyond Pyongyang (Yale University Press, forthcoming) and a co-authored volume on North Korea’s ICT landscape with Nat Kretchun and Martyn Williams (Columbia University Press, forthcoming).
Her research and fieldwork span more than fifteen years and examine how information flows, institutional structures, and elite incentives shape both regime stability and the emergence of dissent within authoritarian systems. Her work has involved sustained engagement with policymakers, international organizations, technology companies, journalists, and civil society actors working at the intersection of governance, technology, and human rights.
She is the founder of Lumen, a nonprofit organization that works to make information available to North Koreans. She previously led Labs at Liberty in North Korea, where she developed technologies and information distribution strategies to expand access to outside information. Earlier in her career, she worked at Google headquarters, where she served as Google Ideas’ North Korea expert (now Jigsaw, an Alphabet company).
She remains actively engaged in civil society initiatives and serves on and advises several nonprofit organizations led by North Korean defectors and Burmese dissidents.
She currently serves as a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Adjunct Faculty at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government. She previously held research positions at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.
She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Harvard, and her PhD at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government. She will graduate from Georgetown Law School in 2028. A native of Los Angeles, she is a member of Shepherd Church, and Passion City Church in Washington, DC. Visit her at www.JieunBaek.com.