Hwaji Shin

Dr. Hwaji Shin is a Professor at the University of San Francisco. She earned her Ph.D. from SUNY Stony Brook where she won a distinguished teaching award as a graduate student. She specializes in the study of nationalism, migration, and citizenship. Her academic career is distinguished by appointments as a visiting research fellow at both Stanford University and the University of Michigan. Dr. Shin is the author of Being Korean, Becoming Japanese?: Nationhood, Citizenship, and Resistance in Japan, which provides a sociological analysis of the struggles for social justice and identity among Zainichi Korean residents in Japan. Beyond her research, she served as a historical and cultural consultant for the award-winning Apple TV+ drama series Pachinko. Her work consistently utilizes the sociological imagination to bridge academic research with public storytelling, addressing structural inequalities and real-world social issues. Through her leadership and scholarship, she offers critical insights into the complex intersections of social categories and belonging in a historical and global context.

• Political sociology with special emphasis on race & ethnicity, citizenship, migration & nationalism, and social movements
• Quantitative and qualitative methods

• Nationalism, citizenship, and migration
• Social inequality
• Social movements

• Director, Sociology DEI Certificate Program at USF (2022-present)

• SUNY Stony Brook, Ph.D. in Sociology (2007)

• Toyota Visiting Professor, Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (2020-2021)
• Research Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University (2008-2010)

• National Endowment of Humanities Chair, University of San Francisco (2022)
• Jesuit Foundation Research Grant, University of San Francisco (2022)
• Distinguished Service Award in College of Arts and Sciences. University of San Francisco (2019)

• "Between Colonization and Globalization: Koreans’ Fight for Social Justice in Japan" in The Three Challenges of Citizenship: Democracy, Market and Globalization, edited by Manlio Cinalli and Senyo Dotsey (2025, Palgrave Macmillan)
• Being Korean, Becoming Japanese?: Nationhood, Citizenship, and Resistance in Japan (2024, University of Hawaii Press)

• Shin, Hwa-Ji. (2010) "Colonial legacy of ethno-racial inequality in Japanese society". Theory and Society, p. 61-76.