Congratulations to PhD student Hyeyoon Kwon, who has been awarded the Expanding Horizons Scholarship from The Rice University Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (GPS), as well as support from the Chao Center for Asian Studies.
The Expanding Horizons Scholarship is generously funded by Rice alumnus Dr. Walter Loewenstern. The fellowship provides students with the opportunity to conduct research-related travel that will benefit the local communities connected to their research while expanding their knowledge and experience.
Hyeyoon Kwon's doctoral project examines how local communities in Mount Jiri, South Korea, live with reintroduced Asiatic black bears within a longer history of state violence, from the Korean War to Cold War conservation regimes. With support from the Expanding Horizons Fellowship and the Chao Center for Asian Studies, she will conduct ethnographic fieldwork in Mount Jiri this summer, producing a bilingual booklet and an interactive digital map based on oral histories collected with local residents.