Paul Kyumin Lee is a PhD student in Peace Studies and Sociology at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. He is interested in bridging research and peacebuilding practice around facilitating healing and reconciliation from the intergenerational trauma of conflict through collective remembering and dialogue.
Since 2016, Paul has led Divided Families USA, an organization dedicated to facilitating closure for elderly Korean Americans who have been separated from their family members in North Korea as a result of the Korean War, and is the co-founder and co-host of the Divided Families Podcast, a platform for connecting stories of family separation.
Paul most recently served as the Understanding Conflict Trust Fellow-in-Residence at the Corrymeela Community, the oldest peace and reconciliation organization in Northern Ireland. He previously worked on the Youth Program and the Northeast Asia Program at the United States Institute of Peace, as well as in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow. Paul has been a facilitator for various intergroup dialogue programs, such as the Northeast Asia Regional Peacebuilding Institute (NARPI), the Words of Engagement Intergroup Dialogue Program (WEIDP) at the University of Maryland, the Strait Talk Symposium, Seeds of Peace Camp, and for International Student Conferences (ISC).
Paul earned an M.Phil in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation at Trinity College Dublin's Irish School of Ecumenics in Belfast, Northern Ireland through the support of the U.S.-UK Fulbright Commission and graduated from Yale University with a bachelor’s in political science. Paul is a Notre Dame Presidential Fellow.