Ji-Hyun Ahn was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea until she started her doctoral studies in the US in 2008. She received B.A. degree in English Literature from Sogang University in 2005 (Summa Cum Laude). She received M.A. degree in Visual Communication from the Graduate School of Communication & Arts in Yonsei University in 2007, and Ph.D. in Media Studies in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at The University of Texas at Austin in 2013. She joined the Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences program at the University of Washington Tacoma as an Assistant Professor in September 2013. At UWT, she will be teaching courses on media globalization and inter-Asian media/cultural studies.

Dr. Ahn specializes in media globalization, Korean television and popular culture, Asian multiculturalism, and critical mixed-race studies. She is particularly interested in examining how media practices have facilitated re-imagination of national identity from a global media perspective. Her ultimate goal is to understand how racial projects in what once were racially homogenous countries in Asia, including South Korea, are differently structured and articulated through the televisual media in comparison to the West. This research topic is particularly significant in that race has been rarely discussed in the globalization process especially in Asia for nationality, rather than race and ethnicity, has been a preferred marker of difference in the Asian context. She believes that her research agenda centered upon media globalization and racial reconfiguration in East Asia can diversify the academic spectrum of SIAS by expanding the programs area of expertise to include Asian media within a global context.