Alison Choi
- alisonchoi2026@u.northwestern.edu
- Field(s): United States
- Specialization: Asian American and Asian Diasporic Histories, Transpacific Studies, Comparative Race and Diaspora
- Advisor(s): Ji-Yeon Yuh
Biography
Alison Choi (she/her) is a PhD candidate in the History Department at Northwestern University. Her research examines Korean American and Korean diasporic histories, located within the emerging field of the Pacific World. Alison’s dissertation investigates the lives of Korean prisoners of war imprisoned in Hawai‘i by the US military during World War Two. She examines the intertwined histories of Pacific Islanders and diasporic Korean prisoners during World War Two, alongside a structural analysis of the unprecedented imperial violence of the Japanese and US empires in the Pacific during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Outside of her research, Alison volunteers for GYOPO, a Korean diasporic arts organization based in Los Angeles that organizes free educational and cultural programming in the LA area. She is also active in feminist organizing for peace on the Korean peninsula in partnership with Women Cross DMZ and Korea Peace Now.