Hyein Koo is a research professor of the Korean Culture Research Institute at Ewha Womans University. She worked as a curator at the Samsung Publishing Museum and a curatorial research assistant at the National Museum of Korea. And she has undertaken various projects related to cultural heritage with the Korean Cultural Heritage Administration, the National Museums in Korea, and the Seoul Metropolitan Government, etc.

Dr. Koo is an art historian with expertise in Korean traditional ceramics and royal crafts in the Joseon Dynasty. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Art History from Ewha Womans University. The title of her dissertation is “Study of Royal Ritual Vessels in the Joseon Dynasty". This was selected as an “Excellent Dissertation” by Ewha Womans University.

Her main research fields are the ritual crafts, spaces, and ritual processes in the Joseon Dynasty. She is currently writing an academic book on the Confucian ritual vessels with the support of the Korea Research Foundation. Comparing China and Japan from the perspective of East Asia, she intends to clarify the universality of Confucianism and the specificity of Joseon implied by Korean ritual crafts.

In addition, as a visiting scholar in Europe, she has a new goal of investigating the ways and characteristics of exhibiting Korean cultural heritage in museums in Europe. This study could help Europeans understand the perception of Korean objects and make better exhibitions.