The Institute for Korean Studies presents:
"How to Apply Your Knowledge of Korea to Work in the Intelligence Community"
John Bolam
U.S. State Department Bureau of Intelligence Research (INR)
Abstract: John Bolam will explain what the intelligence community is, how it functions and what its ultimate purposes is. I will address the history of the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. I will describe my career path from being a double-major at The Ohio State University to working in government. In this part of talk, I plan to address the various scholarships I was fortunate enough to be awarded as a student (Critical Language Scholarship and a Boren Scholarship) and how they shaped my career path and skillsets. I will conclude the talk with a discussion of how I’ve applied what I learned at OSU in my career through a basic overview of how to do analysis of North Korean state media. In this latter part of talk, I will briefly address linguistic difference between North and South Korea.
John Bolam is a Korea analyst in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) where he specializes in analysis of North Korean state media. Before joining INR, John worked as a Korea analyst at the Office of Naval Intelligence and also served on the staff of the National Intelligence Officer for North Korea in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He has a master’s degree in Asian Studies from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree in Korean Language & Literature and East Asian Studies from The Ohio State University. He’s also a graduate of Yonsei University’s Korean Language Institute. A Pennsylvania native, John currently lives in Washington D.C. with his wife, Claire, and two-year-old daughter.
This career talk is restricted to students, faculty, and staff of The Ohio State University. All remarks for the talk are off the record, not to be recorded, and are not for attribution in any form including on social media.
