Areum Jeong is an interdisciplinary scholar and educator of Korean and Korean diasporic cinema, literature, popular culture, theatre and performance. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Korean Studies at Arizona State University. She is the author of Beyond the Sewol: Activist Theatre and Performance in South Korea and the Diaspora (University of Hawai’i Press, September 2025) and K-Pop Fandom: Performing Deokhu from the 1990s to Today (University of Michigan Press, February 2026).

She holds a PhD in Theater and Performance Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, MA in Performance Studies from New York University, and BA in English Literature from Ewha W. University.

Previously, she has taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, University of Southern California, University of California, Santa Barbara, Seoul Women’s University, Sichuan University-Pittsburgh Institute, and Ewha W. University.

Her writings are published in the Asian Theatre Journal, Film International, GPS: Global Performance Studies, Journal of Modern English Drama, Korea Exposé, Korea Journal, Korean Theatre Review, Media Convergence Research, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, New Theatre Quarterly, Studies in Theatre and Performance, and Theatre Journal among others.

As a cultural translator and collaborative deviser of performance, she also provides English-Korean interpretation and translation and organizes seminars and talks with artists and scholars who specialize in Korean and Korean diasporic visual arts.

Based on her research and teaching, she has been asked to share her expertise on Korean culture to media outlets such as the AFP (Agence France-Presse), Al Jazeera, AP (Associated Press), Arirang, Atlantic, BBC, CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), CNN, Huffington Post, Korea Herald, La Tercera, Les Echoes, Marie Claire, NBC, NYLON, South China Morning Post, Teen Vogue, VOA: Voice of America, and Washington Post among others.