Fellows and Fellows Alumni with Lina Yoon

*This event is only open to Fellows and Fellows Alumni

The World Affairs Council Fellows Program offers a unique professional development opportunity to a small group of greater Seattle's business and community leaders. The Fellows convene monthly for breakfast discussions with carefully selected high-caliber international experts who offer unparalleled insight into current global issues, in addition to meeting throughout the year for additional Council events and dedicated networking opportunities.

About the Speaker:

Lina Yoon is a senior researcher at the Asia division of Human Rights Watch focused on the Korean peninsula, mostly North Korea. Her research focuses on the North Korean government’s endemic and widespread rights violations, including arbitrary detentions, lack of due process, torture, forced labor, and discrimination against at-risk groups including women, children, and people with low socio-economic and political status. In addition, Yoon has worked on international advocacy campaigns to create paths for accountability for victims of human rights violations.

Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, Yoon was as a journalist for 12 years. She visited North Korea four times since 2003 and has met with over 400 North Koreans outside the country. She has written for the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and El País, and produced broadcast materials for CBS News, BBC, Al Jazeera International, and CNN International. She has a double bachelor’s degree in politics and mass media from Yonsei University in Seoul and a master’s degree in communication from Tsinghua University in Beijing.

About the Moderator:

Heather Yang Hwalek is a Senior Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She supports the President for Global Policy & Advocacy through cross-cutting policy and advocacy work, overseeing and developing the grants and investments portfolio for the President’s strategic reserve, and managing projects across the foundation such as efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion. She previously held roles at the foundation in the Communications Division and the Office of the CEO’s Strategic Planning & Engagement team. 

Before joining the foundation, Heather served as a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State. She served in the Office of the Secretary of State, at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, Japan, at the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China, at the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, and in additional roles in Washington, DC. Heather is an alumna of the Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship.

Heather has also worked as an English Teacher in Shandong Province, China, as a teaching assistant for Ambassador John Negroponte at Yale University, and as an advance associate on the Presidential campaigns of Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden. She is currently a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Heather studied Anthropology at Columbia University (BA) and International Relations at Yale University (MA) and completed a semester at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. She was born and raised in Bangor, Maine.