I am a sociocultural anthropologist and a Postdoctoral Scholar at GW’s Institute for Korean Studies. I am also a Visiting Scholar at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.


Broadly, my research explores how political imaginaries shape the ways people are racialized, valued, and governed. In South Korea, I examine how North Korean-background migrants become entangled in competing visions of state futures. In the U.S., I look at consumption and politics in the media practices of the North Korean diaspora.



I have written about schooling and neoliberalism in South Korea, and gendered migration between North Korea and China both in policy-facing and fictional form. More of my recent published work can be found below. 

academic publications

Um-Lo, N. 2026. “From North Korean Migrant to ‘Unification Talent:’ Schools, Human Capital, and Neoliberal Future-Making.” Current Issues in Comparative Education, 29(2): 24-42.

Um-Lo, N. 2026. “Brutal Fantasies: Imagining North Korea in the Long Cold War.” Book Review. Journal of Asian Studies, 85(3): 743-745.

Um-Lo, N. 2020. “Biopower, mediascapes, and the politics of fear in the age of Covid-19.” City & Society, 32(2): 247-253.

SELECT PUBLIc / creative writing

Noël Um-Lo takes the page 99 test, CaMP Anthropology Blog, June 2026.

Um-Lo, N. 2026. “Your father bought me for 8,000 yuan.” Anthropology and Humanism, 51(1): e70077.

Um-Lo, N. & Eunsook Jang. 2025. “Slipping through the Cracks in South Korea: The Uncertain Futures for the Children of North Korean Defectors.” Migration Information Source, Migration Policy Institute.