Sang-Yoon Ma is 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 University of Oxford, where he received 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 the academia. He researched as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, the Wilson Center(Washington D.C.), JPI(Jeju) and ISDP(Stockholm). He was elected as the President of the Korean Association of International Studies for 2024.