Katie Gonser

Katie is a Ph.D. student with the Jackson School for International Studies. Her research focuses on the work of humanitarian and human rights organizations in North Korea. She is particularly interested in how these traditionally distinct fields overlap in the North Korean context in terms of both discourse and practice.

Most recently, Katie worked at the Freedom Fund in London, a non-profit dedicated to ending modern slavery. Prior to that, she interned at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva before moving to South Korea on a scholarship to learn Korean. She also interned at the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) in Seoul in 2016.

Katie holds an undergraduate degree in Sociology (Hons) from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland and a master’s degree in Social Work and Human Rights from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Dissertation Project

Humanitarianism and Human Rights in North Korea

Professional Background

Human rights research