IAFOR > The Korea Conference on Arts and Humanities > KCAH > Speakers

Speakers

Speakers will provide a variety of perspectives from different academic and professional backgrounds. This page provides information about presenters. For details of presentations and other programming, please visit the Programme page.

  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
  • Brendan Howe
    Brendan Howe
    Ewha Womans University, South Korea
  • Oh Joon
    Oh Joon
    Kyung Hee University, South Korea

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Excellent plenary speakers are central to our conferences, ensuring that timely, innovative and engaging content is presented to our audiences around the world. If you would like to be considered for a speaking slot at one of our conferences, please apply below.

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Joseph Haldane
The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan

Biography

Joseph Haldane is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of IAFOR. He is responsible for devising strategy, setting policies, forging institutional partnerships, implementing projects, and overseeing the organisation’s business and academic operations, including research, publications and events.

Dr Haldane holds a PhD from the University of London in 19th-century French Studies, and has had full-time faculty positions at the University of Paris XII Paris-Est Créteil (France), Sciences Po Paris (France), and Nagoya University of Commerce and Business (Japan), as well as visiting positions at the French Press Institute in the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas (France), The School of Journalism at Sciences Po Paris (France), and the School of Journalism at Moscow State University (Russia).

Dr Haldane’s research and teaching is on history, politics, international affairs and international education, as well as governance and decision making. Since 2015 he has been a Guest Professor at The Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, where he teaches on the postgraduate Global Governance Course, and is Co-Director of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre, an interdisciplinary think tank situated within Osaka University.

A Member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network for Global Governance, Dr Haldane is also a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade (Serbia), a Visiting Professor at the School of Business at Doshisha University (Japan), where he teaches Ethics and Governance on the MBA programme, and a Member of the International Advisory Council of the Department of Educational Foundations at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s College of Education (USA), collaborating on the development of the Global PhD programme.

Dr Haldane has given invited lectures and presentations to universities and conferences around the world, including at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and advised universities, NGOs and governments on issues relating to international education policy, public-private partnerships, and multi-stakeholder forums. He was the project lead on the 2019 Kansai Resilience Forum, held by the Japanese Government through the Prime Minister’s Office and the Cabinet Office in collaboration with IAFOR.

From 2012 to 2014, Dr Haldane served as Treasurer of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (Chubu Region) and he is currently a Trustee of the HOPE International Development Agency (Japan). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in 2012, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2015.

Brendan Howe
Ewha Womans University, South Korea

Biography

Brendan Howe is Dean and Professor of the Graduate School of International Studies, Ewha Womans University, South Korea, where he has also served two terms as Associate Dean and Department Chair. He is also currently the President of the Asian Political and International Studies Association, and an Honorary Ambassador of Public Diplomacy and advisor for the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has held visiting professorships and research fellowships at the East-West Center (where he is currently enjoying a second term as a POSCO Visiting Research Fellow), the Freie Universität Berlin, De La Salle University, the University of Sydney, Korea National Defence University, Georgetown University, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, and Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Educated at the University of Oxford, the University of Kent at Canterbury, Trinity College Dublin, and Georgetown University, his ongoing research agendas focus on traditional and non-traditional security in East Asia, human security, middle powers, public diplomacy, post-crisis development, comprehensive peacebuilding and conflict transformation. He has authored, co-authored, or edited around 100 related publications including Comprehensive Peacebuilding on the Korean Peninsula (Springer, 2023), Society and Democracy in South Korea and Indonesia (Palgrave, 2022), The Niche Diplomacy of Asian Middle Powers (Lexington Books, 2021), UN Governance: Peace and Human Security in Cambodia and Timor-Leste (Springer, 2020), Regional Cooperation for Peace and Development (Routledge, 2018), National Security, State Centricity, and Governance in East Asia (Springer, 2017), Peacekeeping and the Asia-Pacific (Brill, 2016), Democratic Governance in East Asia (Springer, 2015), Post-Conflict Development in East Asia (Ashgate, 2014), and The Protection and Promotion of Human Security in East Asia (Palgrave, 2013).

Keynote Presentation (2024) | TBA
Oh Joon
Kyung Hee University, South Korea

Biography

Oh Joon is an Eminent Scholar professor of United Nations studies at Kyung Hee University and a Visiting Professor at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management, both in Korea. He is also serving as Chair of Save the Children Korea and President of the Korea Council of Children’s Organizations.

Previously he was a diplomat of the Republic of Korea. He was Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Korea to the United Nations in New York from 2013 to 2016. During this time, he served as the 71st President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and as President of the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) for its 8th and 9th sessions in 2015 and 2016. He was Ambassador of the Republic of Korea in Singapore from 2010-13 and Deputy Minister for Multilateral and Global Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Seoul from 2008-10.

His other international activities have included those as an Eminent Person Adviser to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in 2019; a member of the High Level Panel on the Future of Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2016-17; a member of the Korea Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum (WEF) from 2010-13; the Chair of the United Nations Disarmament Commission (UNDC) in 2006; and the Chair of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) in 2004-05.

Professor Oh is currently working with several civil society organizations in addition to Save the Children. He works on the rights of persons with disabilities both in Korea and internationally, including with the International Disability Alliance (IDA) and Rehabilitation International (RI). In 2018, he served as an Honorary Ambassador for the Paralympic Winter Games held in Pyeongchang , Korea.

The Korean Government awarded him an Order of Service Merit twice, in 1996 and 2006. In 2018, he received a Global Korea Award from Michigan State University in the United Sates. Rehabilitation International (RI) gave him a Global Presidential Award in 2016 in acknowledgment of his achievements as President of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He also received the 2014 Youngsan Diplomat of the Year Award for his work on North Korean human rights issues. He published his first book in Korean “For Mica, Who Contemplates Life” in 2015.

He received a Master’s degree in International Policy Studies from Stanford University (1991- 92); a diploma in International and Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science (1982-83); and a Bachelor’s in French literature from Seoul National University (1974-78). He was also a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University (1990-91).

Keynote Presentation (2024) | TBA