Dr. Stephen Noerper is among Hawai’i’s most prominent Asia scholars and lectures daily on contemporary Asia. Committed to growing future global leaders, Stephen serves on the Punahou faculty and as a Hawai’i Pacific University adjunct professor. Dr. Noerper long advised the United Nations programme to support cooperation in Northeast Asia and served six years at Columbia University and a dozen as Korea Society senior vice president and senior director.
Professor Noerper taught courses on Korea and Asia over three decades at Columbia, NYU, American University, Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies and as a visiting professor at Waseda University and the National University of Mongolia. Dr. Noerper served as president and principal of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral Academy, director and senior fellow at the EastWest Institute, Intellibridge vice president, U.S. State Department analyst and Nautilus Institute resident representative in Washington, DC. He was a visiting fellow at the East-West Center, Korea’s Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, and the Edward R. Murrow Center for Public Diplomacy.
Professor Noerper has appeared at venues as varied as the Foreign Correspondents Club of China, Swedish Institute, Wilton Park, Russian Diplomatic Academy, the World Leaders Summit, Shangri-La Dialogue, National Press Club, Korea’s National Institute for Unification Education, where he was the 2021 visiting scholar, and scores of university, school and corporate events. He has authored over eighty publications and studies.
Through global lectures and before major media audiences, Dr. Noerper proffers creative solution-building and constructive negotiation and coaches media, corporate and community leaders, instructors and students. He has tackled intractable crises from Korea to broader Asia and the globe and builds platforms for engagement, creative learning and sound analyses.
A graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and London School of Economics, Dr. Noerper has served on boards promoting African American arts, good governance in Asia, leadership, and principled international engagement. He is a recipient of Mongolia’s State Friendship medal, presented by its president, for his service in education and to international relations.