Donald Baker

Donald Baker is Associate Professor of History at the University of British Columbia and director of UBC’s Center for Korean Research, where he specializes in Korean cultural history.  He first became involved with Korea in 1971 when he went to the southwestern provincial capital of Gwangju to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer middle school English teacher. He went to receive his Ph.D. in Korean History from the University of Washington.  His dissertation was a study of the Confucian confrontation with Catholicism in 18^th century Korea.  Baker taught Korean, Japanese and Chinese history at various universities in the United States before moving to UBC in 1987. He has recently finished an article on the history of Oriental medicine in Korea.  He is coeditor of the Sourcebook of Korean Civilization (Columbia University Press).