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Ju Oak (Jade) Kim is an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Communication at Texas A&M International University. As a recipient of the 2010 Study Abroad Scholarship, competitively selected by the National Institute for International Education, Ministry of Education in Korea, She completed her Ph.D. in the Lew Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University in 2016. She is a 2020–2021 NextGen fellow, chosen by CSIS Korea Chair and USC Korean Studies Institute with support from the Korea Foundation.

Her research explores the power dynamics of human interactions on media representations, cultural practices, and digital networks. Kim’s interdisciplinary approaches embrace global communication, cultural studies, East Asian studies, postcolonial studies, and media industry studies.

Kim is currently working on her monograph, looking into how connections and movements, driven by technologies, allow peripheral actors to tackle the ideological amalgamation of Western and global culture. In this book, drawing on in-depth interviews with media practitioners in the K-pop and broadcasting industries and intensive analyses of media texts, Kim illuminates digital connectivity and diasporic mobility in reshaping the social structure of cultural interactions and the communicative boundary of aesthetic practices. Her previous work on global media and cultural representations appears in Feminist Media Studies, Media, Culture & Society, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, International Journal of Communication, and the Journal of Popular Culture.

Prior to Academia, Kim worked as the writer of the award-winning KBS documentary series, China (Grand Prize from Korean Broadcasting Commission and Best Picture Prize in Journalism at Korean Broadcasting Awards), the adapter of the Korean film A Letter from Mars, a content producer at Samsung Economic Research Institute, and a media consultant for the Korea Society. She is the winner of Chosun Ilbo‘s Annual Spring Literary Contest for Springtime.

Kim holds her Ph.D. in Mass Media and Communication from Temple University, M.F.A. in Television Production from Brooklyn College, the City University of New York, and M.A. in Communication and B.A.s in Korean Language Education and Communication from Seoul National University.