Sang-Yoon Ma is a Professor of International Relations at the Catholic University of Korea. He studied IR for his B.A. and M.A. degrees at Seoul National University. Then, as a Swire Scholar, he continued his study at the University of Oxford, where he received a DPhil degree with his thesis analyzed ROK-U.S. relations during the 1960s. From September 2016 to August 2019, Ma was Director-General for Strategy at the Foreign Ministry. He also was a member of the advisory committee of the Unification Ministry. Professor Ma has a long list of activities in academia. He served the Korean Association of International Studies as its Research and General Directors in 2013 and 2015. He also researched as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, the Wilson Center(Washington D.C.), JPI(Jeju), and ISDP(Stockholm).