Research interests: literary and cultural studies in Global Asias, disability justice, public health policy, war/empire studies, critical Korean studies

Ka-eul Yoo, UCI assistant professor of global and international studies, specializes in contemporary multi-ethnic U.S. and Global Asias literature and culture, focusing on disability justice, public health policy, and U.S. empire and transpacific violence. In particular, she concentrates on tracing the relationships between the genealogy of biopolitical precarity, U.S. imperial violence, and disability in the global South, shedding light on Cold War legacies of racism and ableism. Alongside her research projects, Yoo continues her work as a Korean–English translator, specifically focusing on feminist multimedia art, activism, and scholarship related to disability activism and war violence in South Korea. As a scholar from South Korea, Yoo views the translation process as crucial for bringing critiques of U.S. empire from the periphery to the core.

Beyond academic institutions, Yoo works alongside community organizers at both the local and transnational levels. Most recently, she collaborated with the Korea-Vietnam Peace Foundation, translating testimonies that detail civilian massacres by South Korean troops during the Vietnam War. She is also a core member of the Ending the Korean War Teaching Collective, a group of critical Asianists and Asian Americanists designing a public syllabus on the Korean War.

Yoo earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in English at Yonsei University, followed by her Ph.D. in Literature at UC Santa Cruz. She began her journey at UCI in 2022 with a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Asian American Studies. Keen to create a vibrant academic and collaborative environment, she looks forward to engaging with the UCI community to further explore and address the intertwined issues of race, war, and disability.