A folklorist and Professor Emerita at Catholic Kwandong University. Born in Seoul, she earned her undergraduate degree in Journalism and Broadcasting from Ewha Womans University and received her PhD in Korean Literature from the same institution with a dissertation titled A Study on Shamanic Ritual Performances. She began field research on Korean shamanism in 1976 and, starting in 1988, conducted comparative studies of Asian shamanic cultures based on fieldwork in Japan, Myanmar, Taiwan, and Vietnam.
