Seonyeong Jo, Ph.D.

I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Moravian University.

Currently, I am working on my first book project that examines how judges make decisions, focusing on gender and hierarchy within South Korea’s legal system. I’m interested in how a judge’s gender and rank might influence deliberations and sentencing outcomes in rape cases, considering the impact of South Korea’s deeply rooted hierarchical culture on the informality within courts, such as the dynamics of seniority among judges. By analyzing these factors in the context of the MeToo movement, I aim to uncover how one’s gender and institutional designs shape judicial voices and decisions within this men-dominated field.

My research has been supported by various fellowships and grants. I was a Doctoral Dissertation Fellow (DDF) for AY 2022-2023. During the academic year of 2020-2021, I was a Leadership in Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity (LEID) Fellow as well as a recipient of the APSA Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (DDRIG) funded by the National Science Foundation, and the Huang Hsing Chun-tu Hsueh International Fellowship Fund from the American Political Science Association’s Centennial Center.