Christopher Shim '02/'03 of South Korea, San Jose, Seattle and Cabot House considers spearheading the foundation of the Harvard World Taekwondo Federation Club in the Fall of 1999 as one of his most rewarding achievements. Though he sometimes longs for the days when the club constitution was lax and he ruled with a Kissingerian monopoly over the roles of executive board president, competition team captain and principal instructor, Chris now enjoys sleep and wisely realizes that the organization is in better, younger, and stronger hands today.

Chris was conferred his black belt by Grandmaster Sun Hwang of Kirkland, WA, in 1996. When smaller and faster, Chris won several medals in the annual Washington State tournaments and the 1996 Taekwondo Junior Olympics, but found greater joy in teaching Taekwondo upon coming to Harvard. Chris was conferred his second degree black belt in May of 2000, in HTKD's (then HWTF's) first black belt exam.

Chris is currently in law school at Washington University in Saint Louis. He also attended Officer Candidate School at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia and is a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Corps. After law school, he plans to serve for four years in the JAG Corps.

Kathy Chang graduated Harvard in 2002 with an AB in biochemical sciences and is a former resident of Quincy House. She is a Co-Founder of the HWTF and served as both an Instructor and Co-Captain of the Competition Team. Kathy is originally from Whitestone, NY, near New York City, and began her training at Huang's Taekwondo in 1994. Kathy earned her 1st dan in September of 1998 and her 2nd dan with Harvard in 2002. Kathy has competed at several local and state tournaments, and took her skills to the national level at the US Cup in October of 1999, winning a bronze in black belt forms.

Besides using her roundhouses and back kicks to nail people (including fellow instructors), Kathy loooves Ultimate Frisbee (as sacrilegious as it sounds, Kathy asserts that it's a toss-up between what she enjoys more - Taekwondo or Ultimate). During her time at Harvard, Kathy was also a member of the Radcliffe Choral Society. She also loves dolphins, running, math (though she claims she's not good enough), singing and--a childhood favorite--reading fantasy.

Kathy recently graduated from the Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons and decided to be a doctor in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. She is currently a resident in the Boston area. After undergoing knee surgery in December of 2003 (and getting through third year of medical school), she obtained her 3rd dan blackbelt in May 2005. Kathy married Master Dan Chuang (coach of the MIT team) in May 2006.

Brian was a member of the HWTF for two years. He graduated from Harvard College in 2001 with an AB in East Asian Studies. He moved to New York City and served as a financial analyst in the investment banking division of Merrill Lynch from July 2001 to September 2003. In October 2002, he switched jobs to work for David L. Babson, where he did high-yield corporate loan research. Brian is currently completing a master's degree program in international relations at Johns Hopkins University.

Christina Park is a Mechanical Engineering graduate of MIT. She has been training in Taekwondo since the age of 10, and has studied at several schools. She is currently a member of West Side Taekwondo under Masters Sung Chul and Jun Chul Whang. She received her 1st dan in September of 1994, 2nd dan in June of 1996, and 3rd dan in May of 2000. She was an Instructor of HTKD and also an Instructor and former President of the MIT Sport Taekwondo Club.

Christina has earned numerous awards in competition and was a two time bronze medalist in the US Jr. Olympics before coming to MIT. In 2001, she broke onto the Taekwondo circuit with double gold wins at the state level, and bronze medals at the US Nationals and US National Team Trials. Christina was also successful in the collegiate level, as the two-time middleweight champion at the National Collegiate Taekwondo Championships. She was named by the National Collegiate Taekwondo Association as 2002 Female Athlete of the Year.

In her spare time, Christina enjoys playing the violin, and served as a small group leader for the MIT Asian Christian Fellowship.

Jeanie Christina Yoon is a Harvard College (Eliot House) and Harvard Medical School alum, having graduated in June '02 with an A.B. in Physics and June '07 with her MD. Jeanie was born in Seattle, but grew up in Denmark and Maryland. She began her training at the International Martial Arts Center in Rockville, MD, where she trained for three years and earned her 1st dan in March 1997. Jeanie has competed in collegiate, state, and national tournaments.

When not doing taekwondo, Jeanie enjoys food, movies, traveling, happy techno music, and big dogs. She dislikes spiders. Currently, Jeanie is completing her residency in Seattle.

Edwin Yoo was a biology concentrator at Harvard College and enjoyed the beautiful architecture of Pforzheimer House from his spacious single in Currier House. Edwin devoted 15 years of his life to the violin until one day he rented "Drunken Master 2" from Tokyo Kid in 1994. He quit HRO the very next day and started learning taekwondo. One of the co-founders of HTKD, he earned his 1st dan black belt the spring of 1999, his 2nd dan in May 2003, and his 3rd dan in April 2006.

When not checking his email, Edwin is rock climbing, snowboarding, scuba diving, avoiding responsibility, rescuing kittens, and taking Advair. (Advair saved his life!) In his quest to never leave Harvard, he recently began his Ph.D studies in biomechanics in the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology department and is a Lowell House non-resident tutor.

Master Peter Lee is an internationally certified 6th dan Master under Grandmaster Keun Ha Kim in Canada. He has been training in Taekwondo for over 25 years and has been teaching adults since the age of 14. He is a nationally certified referee and has competed at the national level in both Canada and the U.S. Previously, he was the head instructor and coach for the Brown University Taekwondo Club before coming to Harvard to serve as the club's Master Instructor.

Outside of Taekwondo, Master Lee is a surgical resident at Tufts Medical School. He has 5 academic degrees: a M.D./Ph.D from Brown Medical and Brown Graduate School, a Masters of Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health, a Masters of Space Studies from the International Space University in France, and a B.S. in neuroscience from Brown University. His research interests are in biotechnology, aerospace medicine and space biology where he has had experiments on the space shuttle and on NASA's microgravity airplane (KC-135). He is a Captain in the United States Air Force Auxiliary and enjoys flying, scuba diving, and rock climbing. Currently, he is completing a surgical residency at Tufts Medical School.

Master Jang served as an Instructor for HWTF from August 2001 to October 2002. He graduated from Kyunghee University, College of Physical Education and Sports Science, in the department of Taekwondo. He is currently teaching taekwondo in clubs at Seoul and Yonsei Universities.

Master Park is a fifth degree black belt from Korea with over 25 years of taekwondo experience. He is a certified referee of the United States Taekwondo Union. He currently serves as the master instructor and coach for the Brown University Taekwondo Club. Using his psychology degree from Brown University, he passionately but patiently guides his students to achieve their goals in taekwondo and in life. Master Park runs Park's Champion Taekwondo Center, in Smithfield, RI.

David Lee was an instructor for HWTF from 1999 to 2002. Hailing from Edison, NJ, David's previous experience in TKD includes training with H.S. Lee's Taekwondo School in Colonia, NJ, and with the Princeton University Taekwondo Club . He earned his 1st degree black belt in 1988, his 2nd dan in 1994, and his 3rd dan in 2002.

Unfortunately, the time spent studying for the bar in the summer of 2002 left David uncoordinated and unable to kick above his knee. With little time these days to regain what little flexibility and skill he once had, David has subsequently been reduced to limit his physical activity to the challenging "sport" of golf. David currently works for a patent law firm in New York City.

***

***

Liza Shakhnovich was a graduate student in microbiology at Harvard Medical School. She started Taekwondo at the age of 18 at the University of Pennsylvania, where she graduated with a degree in molecular biology in June 2002. She has also trained at West Side Taekwondo, in NYC, under the Masters Whang, and Team Players Taekwondo, in Columbus, OH, with Master Robb Irvin, where she received her 1st dan in December 2002. She continues to train with both those schools, as well as CW Taekwondo Boston.

Liza began fighting mostly in the INCTL, but has gone on to medal at Senior Nationals, Collegiate Nationals, and the World University Games. When not training, she enjoys running, painting, snowboarding, playing with her slightly overweight cat Dubbel, and doing anything outdoors. And, when she's not cutting weight, she loves to cook (and eat).

Mr. Bo Jackson was a graduate student in the Econ department and a semi-professional Usher look-a-like. It is often believed that Bo picked up Taekwondo after realizing that he blue belt in Karate, obtained at Yale, failed to defend him from the flock of fans that assaulted him one fateful evening seeking Usher autographs. In reality, he was attracted to the sparring and sport components of TKD, which Shotokan did not offer.

Bo is also extremely flexible. Bo's impressive kicking height is the result of sitting in a straddle with a table wrenching his legs apart while watching Disney and partaking of cold beverages. This is referred to as the Bo-split method, and is referenced often in major articles and books on flexibility. Bo is also the proud owner of a stolen right knee. In the future, he hopes to enact vengeance on those who killed his original. Beware...

Currently, Mr. Bo Jackson is Dr. Mr. Professor Bo Jackson at Cornell University.

Danny Lee was a biochemistry concentrator living in the most badass concrete fortress ever, Mather House. He was born and raised in the boonies of Winter Haven, FL and, despite having Korean parents with thick Korean accents, somehow developed a slight southern drawl, which thickens when he’s really tired. He joined HTKD in the fall of his freshman year and hasn't looked back since. But that’s actually because he can’t turn his neck independently from his body because of taking so many kicks to the head. Just kidding.

Apart from TKD and tending to pinched body parts, Danny really doesn’t do much except lock himself in his room and study. And by that, he means watch anime or play videogames. Seriously, though, Danny likes eating (especially strange combinations of things like soy sauce on pork buns), sleeping, watching anime, playing videogames, watching movies, and basically anything else that doesn’t require him to exert a lot of effort. In 2006, Danny earned both his black belt with HTKD and perhaps even more importantly, full DOM status. Currently, he is a medical student at UVA.

Julie is a graduate student in the Astronomy department. She started Taekwondo at UMASS Amherst in 2001 after being told that hiking alone was too dangerous. She figured that taking up TKD, she could both continue to get exercise and train for the day when she would be more dangerous than any of the crazies she encountered in the woods. Julie also claims to enjoy meditation almost as much as TKD. In the future, she hopes to incorporate some elements of Buddhism into her training. Within Taekwondo, Julie enjoys forms as well as high jumping and spinning kicks. Outside of Taekwondo, Julie has a variety of interests, from pyschology discussions to making jewelry- sometimes with astronomy themes beadwork. An interesting fact about Julie is that she has Mayflower Pilgrim ancestry on one side of her family.