Dr. Jai Poong Ryu is emeritus professor and former chairman of the Department of Sociology at Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Ryu has taught at Loyola since 1976 and has been a full professor since 1984. His areas for teaching and research have included sociological theory, demography, mass communication, race/ethnic relations, and urban sociology.

In 1982, Ryu received Loyola’s first Fulbright-Hays Award and taught at Seoul National University, his alma mater. He received his bachelor’s degree in 1964 from College of Law, Seoul National University; M.A. in 1968; and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota in 1972.

Ryu also served as a part-time special assistant to the Mayor Curt Schmoke of Baltimore and as the Mayor’s liaison to the Korean-American community of Greater Baltimore. He is the author of Residential Segregation of Blacks in Metropolitan America (1983) and has published widely in scholarly journals, edited books, newspapers and magazines.

Ryu has been actively involved in civic affairs and has received citations from offices of the U.S. Congress, State of Maryland, Baltimore County and Baltimore City. His civic work has been recognized by the Korean Society of Baltimore and Korean Students Association and he has served as an advisor position for the Federation of Korean Associations-USA and other ethnic organizations in the Baltimore-Washington Area.

Ryu founded the One Korea Foundation in 2012 with the purpose of generating public discourse and consensus on the issue of Korean reunification.  In early 2015 the One Korea Foundation helped establish the One Korea Coalition in partnership with more than 600 groups in Korea and the United States. Ryu serves the Coalition’s Co-chair.