Hongyul Han was born in Busan, Korea in 1960. He finished B.A. in economics at Hanyang University in Seoul where he has been living since 1979. He left Seoul for 4 years in his late 20s to earn his Ph.D in Economics from the University of Pittsburgh, USA in 1991. His main area of academic research includes international economics, industrial policy and international trade diplomacy.
After finishing college education and mandated military service, his professional service has been concentrated in policy oriented research and academics. As a first son of family deeply rooted in scholarly tradition for centuries in Korea, his choice of profession is naturally regarded as a duty for his greater family. His career started as an economist in one of the prominent government think tank, the Korea Institute for Economics and Technology(KIET) in 1987. After earning his Ph.D in Economics, he returned to his mother country to join the newly established government think tank, the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy(KIEP) in1991, where he actively participated in the negotiations of the Uruguay Round. After 4 years of service in KIEP, he was invited to the department of economics at Hanyang University.
Following the Korea’s scholarly tradition, he continued to provide his academic expertise for public sectors. He was appointed as the chairman of the Korea Consensus Research Center(KCRC) in 2013. KCRC is an independent research organization with over 60 Ph.D specialists in various social sciences. In this organization, he leads various research activities to produce economic policies and social policies for the benefit of the Korean society and peace of the Korean peninsula. At the same time, he is actively involved in providing policy advices for governments of both Korea and other developing countries. He is a member of advisory committees for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. He has also operated policy consulting projects for developing countries including Ecuador and Sri Lanka.
He is happily married with his wife Seungsil Kim. They have a son and a daughter. His son is working as an educator in the US and his daughter is starting a graduate course in development economics at Vanderbilt University.
He has been practicing his trumpet for the past 3 years and still struggling.
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