Research Discipline/Bio
Noël is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her dissertation research, situated in South Korean alternative schools for North Korean displaced youth, examines how states and civil society actors map religious and political meaning onto the experience of displacement. Drawing on three years of ethnographic and archival research, this project traces the social life of South Korean unification as it moves beyond state ideology and becomes an infrastructural logic—one that mediates access to education, recognition, and belonging for North Korean displaced youth. At its core, her research asks what it means to be folded into a nation’s future while being excluded from its present. This project is supported by the National Academy of Education (NAEd)/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant in Cultural Anthropology.
Educational Background
M.Phil, Applied Anthropology, Teachers College (2022)
M.A., Anthropology, Columbia University (2018)
B.A., History, Carnegie Mellon University (2016)
Honors/Awards
National Academy of Education (NAEd)/Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, 2025
National Science Foundation (NSF) Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant in Cultural Anthropology, 2024
Teachers College Dean's Grant for Student Research, 2024
Arthur Zankel Urban Fellowship, 2018-2020
Columbia University Roger Lehecka Double Discovery Center Fellowship, 2018-2020
Publications/Exhibitions
Um, Noël. 2020. “Biopower, mediascapes, and the politics of fear in the age of COVID-19." City & Society 32 (2).
Last Updated: Jun 2, 2025