Dr. Yoon has more than 20 years of experience in media literacy, intercultural communication, children and media, Korean culture, and teacher education. Her work has taken place across public and private schools, alternative education settings, universities, and teacher education programmes in South Korea and the United States.
Born and raised in South Korea until ninth grade, she spent her early childhood immersed in Korean family values, traditions and everyday practices of care. During her teenage years, her family moved to Thailand, an experience that placed her at the crossroads of different cultures, languages and ways of life, including occasional visits to neighbouring Malaysia. Living across cultures taught her that culture is not simply a set of customs, but a living lens through which we experience family, learning, belonging and care.
She later returned to South Korea for university before continuing her graduate studies in the United States, earning her master’s degree from New York University and her Ph.D. from Temple University in Philadelphia. She went on to earn tenure at Roosevelt University in Chicago. After many years in this role, she chose to step away to make more room for independent scholarship, public writing and creative projects that connect research with everyday life. Today, she continues her work as a Fellow Scholar at the Media Education Lab.
Her current writing explores the layered nature of Korean culture: how longstanding traditions, rapid modernisation, family values, collective memory and global media shape Korean society today. Through her newsletter and podcast at yoonjiwon.substack.com, she invites international audiences to look beyond trends and stereotypes.
Created for Malaysia’s multicultural families, her approach presents Taegyo in a way that feels welcoming, relevant and achievable for parents from different cultural backgrounds. Her hope is simple: that families will learn to appreciate the quiet, everyday moments of pregnancy, because it is through these gentle moments of care, connection and love that a family begins to grow.
