John Park is an adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School and a research associate at MIT. He is also a faculty affiliate with the Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He was the 2012–2013 Stanton Nuclear Security Junior Faculty Fellow at MIT's Security Studies Program. He previously directed Northeast Asia Track 1.5 projects at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. These initiatives include the U.S.-China Project on Crisis Avoidance & Cooperation, the U.S.-ROK-Japan Trilateral Dialogue in Northeast Asia, and the U.S.-China-Japan Dialogue on Risk Reduction & Crisis Prevention. He advises Northeast Asia policy-focused officials at the Departments of Defense, State, and the Treasury, as well as on the National Security Council and congressional committees.
Dr. Park worked at Goldman Sachs, where he specialized in U.S. military privatization financing projects. Prior to that, he was the project leader of the North Korea Analysis Group at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. He earlier worked in Goldman Sachs' M&A Advisory Group in Hong Kong and the Boston Consulting Group's Financial Services Practice in Seoul.
Dr. Park's publications include: "Assessing the Role of Security Assurances in Dealing with North Korea" in Security Assurances and Nuclear Nonproliferation (Stanford University Press, 2012); "North Korea, Inc.: Gaining Insights into North Korean Regime Stability from Recent Commercial Activities" (USIP Working Paper, May 2009); and "North Korea's Nuclear Policy Behavior: Deterrence and Leverage," in The Long Shadow: Nuclear Weapons and Security in 21st Century Asia (Stanford University Press, 2008).
His current research focuses on the North Korean regime's accumulated learning in evading targeted sanctions. Dr. Park received his M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Cambridge University and completed his pre-doctoral and post-doctoral training at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center.
To curb North Korea's nuclear program, follow the money
Sep 21, 2016 06:29 am UTC| Insights & Views
North Koreas fifth nuclear test on September 9 sparked a new round of questions about how to contain this rapidly growing threat. Like clockwork, the United States and its northeast Asian allies are already preparing...
What is the right response to North Korea's fourth nuclear test?
Jan 12, 2016 11:35 am UTC| Insights & Views
The emerging consensus among technical experts is that North Korea did not conduct a successful hydrogen bomb test last week. The seismic activity that international monitoring stations detected on Jan. 5 was too small to...
There’s an extra $1 billion on the table for NT schools. This could change lives if spent well