Seung Wook Ethan Yoo  is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Government at The University of Texas at Austin. He serves as the Lab Manager at the Politics of Race and Ethnicity (PRE) Lab, a Graduate Project Lead at Innovations for Peace and Development (IPD), and a Graduate Research Fellow at the Irma Rangel Public Policy Institute.

His research focuses on racial and ethnic politics, immigration, and Asian American politics, emphasizing conditions for reducing prejudice and in-group intolerance. Employing a mixed-methods approach—including experiments and qualitative interviews—his work explores how minority individuals’ expressions of local cultural appreciation and shared social identities can mitigate negative attitudes from native populations.

Ethan’s dissertation examines whether minority immigrants’ appreciation of local culture—such as enjoying local food or music—and shared psychological social identities, like sports fandom, can reduce natives’ anti-immigrant attitudes in the United States and in comparative contexts like South Korea and Singapore.

Beside the PRE Lab, Ehtan has received research support from organizations such as the Academy of Korean Studies, Texas Politics Project, and the Irma Rangel Public Policy Institute. Ethan has also been awarded fellowships from the Rapoport Family Foundation, the College of Liberal Arts Graduate School, and the Government Department at UT Austin.