Hyeryung Jo is from South Korea. She has long been committed to shedding light on overlooked corners of society. That goal led her to begin her career as a civil servant in the Korean government, where she designed and implemented social welfare programs on aging, child welfare, and health.

After a decade of public service, she decided to pursue an academic career to further contribute to the design of more comprehensive social policies. Specifically, her research interests lie in social welfare policy in the United States, particularly the gap between policy design and real-world implementation.

She is interested in how eligibility rules such as the work requirement provisions in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program can unintentionally push people out of the program. She aims to analyze the short- and long-term consequences of these provisions in order to propose more inclusive program designs for poverty reduction and societal well-being. She hopes to draw on her cross-cultural background and professional experience to develop more practical policy research.

She has a B.A. in business administration from Seoul National University, an M.P.A. from Seoul National University, and an M.P.A. from Syracuse University, where she graduated this past December. She works with Professor Colleen Heflin.