Dokyung (DK) Jang is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where his research examines economic sanctions and nuclear proliferation. His work focuses on how external coercion reshapes domestic political behavior, patterns of economic adaptation, and public perception, drawing on quantitative methods including panel data analysis and text analysis. Before beginning his doctoral studies, Jang worked as a researcher at the Taejae Future Consensus Institute and as a research associate at the Korean Institute for National Unification (KINU), where he examined denuclearization policy and inter-Korean relations. He was selected as a Pacific Forum Young Leader (YLP Class of 2023) and was named an emerging scholar by South Korea’s Ministry of Unification, reflecting his growing profile at the intersection of academic research and policy practice.