Juhn Ahn, an associate professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, has been named the Nam Center’s new director, effective July 1, 2025. Ahn works on Buddhism and the history of Korea, with a rare combination of expertise in premodern Korean culture and encyclopedic knowledge of contemporary Korean society. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.
As director, Ahn succeeds Youngju Ryu, who has been appointed the director of the International Institute. Ryu shares that “Professor Ahn's dedication to the Nam Center and to the Korean Studies program at the University of Michigan is unmatched, and I am thrilled that he has agreed to lead the Nam Center into what will surely be anexciting future.”
At the Nam Center, Ahn has been a long-serving member of the Executive Committee, which he joined immediately upon arriving in Michigan in 2009. In his home department of ALC, Prof. Ahn has been a leader in undergraduate education and curriculum development, shepherding the program through the difficult years of the pandemic.
