Hayeon Lee is an anthropologist of Korea and Vietnam, as well as a trained social worker. She earned her PhD from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research interests include feminist ethnography, gender, transnational migration, mixed marriages, intersectionality, Vietnam-South Korea relations, selfhood, labor, care, community organizing, and ageing.

She is currently working on a book manuscript based on her dissertation entitled Korea Dreaming: Vietnamese Women’s Stories from the Marriage Migration Cycle, which examines marriage migrant women’s stories at different phases of their migration trajectories between Vietnam and South Korea. Her current related project looks at how Vietnamese marriage migrant women and their transnational families negotiate ageing and care work. Other research topics include South Korea’s involvement in the Vietnam War and K-pop in Vietnam. Before joining the Korea Institute, she was a postdoctoral research scholar in modern Vietnamese studies at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University.