Dr. Kadir Jun Ayhan is the Research Development Manager at the JMU REDI. He is an Affiliated Scholar at the JMU Department of Political Science and the George Washington University Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.

Before relocating to the United States in 2024, Dr. Ayhan served as an Associate Professor of International Relations and the Ph.D. Program Director at Ewha Womans University Graduate School of International Studies. His research interests primarily focus on the intersection of foreign policy and public diplomacy. He has published over 20 peer-reviewed journal articles, including in International Studies Perspectives, Journal of Asian and African Studies, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, and Politics & Policy, among others, over 10 book chapters, and three edited volumes. Dr. Ayhan served as a member of the Korean Presidential Transition Panel in 2022 and as a member of a presidential special committee on immigration in 2023. He is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Public Diplomacy. He enjoys playing with data to curate datasets, analyze and visualize textual and quantitative data.

As an instructor, Dr. Ayhan is a big fan of active learning exercises, including games, simulations, and film, and has published on the pedagogy of active learning in international relations. As PI/ Co-PI/ Leader, he secured $1.73 million in research and program development grants. Dr. Ayhan was awarded the International Studies Association’s ICOMM Best Paper Award, Fulbright Visiting Scholar Award—which he decided to forego for personal reasons—, and Global Korea Scholarship for his research, among other accomplishments. Dr. Ayhan earned a Ph.D. in International Studies from Seoul National University. You can find Dr. Ayhan’s research, and blog at ayhan.phd.