Ga Young Chung

Ga Young Chung is an Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Davis, with affiliations in Cultural Studies, Human Rights Studies, East Asian Studies, and the School of Education. Her interdisciplinary scholarship critically examines racial capitalism, Asian settler colonialism, militarism, and social movements.

• Ph.D. in Global Studies in Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• M.A. and B.A. in Sociology, Yonsei University, South Korea

Her research centers on the precarity and resistance of marginalized communities, particularly undocumented Korean immigrants and transnational agrocolonial histories. Chung employs ethnographic, archival, and community-engaged methods to explore how race, migration, and empire shape lives and futures. She is completing her first book, Unexpired: Race, Undocumented Youth Time, and Imperial Futurity (under contract with NYU Press), and developing a second on Korean soybeans and decolonial imaginations.

Her recent publications span topics such as anti-racist elder education, militarized citizenship, and undocumented youth activism. The articles reflect a consistent focus on liberation, resistance, and the intersection of race, law, and education. She co-founded the Asian American Seed Stewards and leads transnational research on academic resilience and racialization in Korea.

• Faculty Development Award, UC Davis (2025)
• Emerging Scholar Award, Global Studies Research Network (2024)
• Ewha Global Fellow (2024)
• Hellman Fellows Award (2023)
• DHI Network-Collaboration Award (2022)
• Outstanding Achievement in Public Scholarship, UC Davis (2021)
• Diversity Scholar, University of Michigan (2020)

Chung is a dedicated mentor and public scholar, having taught ethnic studies in community settings and advised numerous research initiatives. She serves as Chair of the Board at NAKASEC and on the board of the Friends of Education Justice Project, supporting immigrant justice and incarcerated people's access to education. Her work is supported by grants from the Social Science Research Council, National Research Foundation of Korea, and Academy of Korean Studies.

She founded the interdisciplinary Asian American Seed Stewards collective and is co-investigator on two major transnational research projects: Resilient Academics: Re-imagining Academic Horizons and Race and Gender: Theorizing the New Racialization of the Asian Migrants in South Korea.