Juli Alvarado is an internationally recognized consultant, motivational speaker and expert in the area of relationship, attachment, trauma, adoption, and foster care. She is the president of Coaching for Life, LLC, a personal and professional development firm.

Kacy Ames, LCSW was adopted from Korea at 4 1/2 months old. She is a Psychotherapist in New York City and works with individuals, couples, and families touched by adoption.

Aimee was adopted in 1987 at 14 months old to a wonderful family in upstate, NY. She now lives in Maryland, outside of Washington D.C. pursuing the sexiest degree possible, a Masters of Library Science. She had taught and studied in South Korea and reunited with her birth family while she was there. She emails with her older sister and is a proud aunt. Aimee has also won several diversity-related awards.

As a young Korean woman, Ms. Bae had a love affair with an American man in Korea. She learned that she was pregnant, and found that the relationship would not end in marriage. She chose to deliver the baby and reached out for help. As a result, she moved into a convent.  While she was living at the convent, she chose adoption for her child. 28 years later, Ms. Bae found her son in Australia -- Peter Bell, the famous football star! Ms. Bae tells the story of her journey from bleak hopelessness to profound joy and peace. Ms. Bae immigrated to the US in 1979, where she attended Oakland University and Wayne State University. She holds a master’s degree in communications, and worked as a leadership coach for corporate executives until her retirement in 1999. She now lives at Lake Tahoe where she pursues her love of sport and nature.

Brent Beesley, subject of the film, was adopted to the US and grew up in South Dakota. He reunited with his birth mother in 2005 on Korean national TV. Since then, he has met her three times. He decided to become involved in Resilience after he was a posting for the film online in 2006 and after speaking with the director of the film, Tammy Chu. He lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota raising his two daughters.

Kerry Bondy is a Korean adoptee, whose participation in past KAAN conferences  has included volunteering, and organizing bone marrow donor registration drives.  As a Physician Assistant at the University of Michigan, she facilitated a  support group for bone marrow transplant patients, and served on the board of  the National Bone Marrow Transplant Link. Kerry supports recruitment of  minorities on the marrow donor registry, as it increases the likelihood of  adopted Koreans finding a match.

Sara Campbell is a Limited License Master's Social Worker with the State of Michigan. She has worked three years in the mental health crisis field and four and a half years in Foster Care and Adoption. She brings her experience as an adult adoptee to her work.

Adam Carlson is still constructing his identity after being adopted from Korea as an infant. He is currently sorting things out as a retail manager in Brooklyn, New York. His story is the first in the book, Once They Hear My Name: Korean Adoptees and Their Journeys Toward Identity.

Katharine Carlson, Psy.D, works in community mental health in Washington, DC. She was adopted domestically as an infant. She reunited with her birth parents at the age of thirteen and continues to maintain connections with both of their families.

Paul Carlson is an environmental consultant and natural resources manager for a local park system. Previously he worked as an administrator for the National Endowment for the Arts. He is happy what his children, Katie and Adam Carlson share his love of nature, music, and the arts. He and his wife Marilyn Lammert, live in Bethesda, Maryland.

Ms. Cho, Myung Hee has been with Eastern Social Welfare Society since August, 2000. She is currently a case worker in the Case Worker at Post-Adoption Service Department.

Korean American John Chong has been an active member of Antioch Church in Philadelphia for over eight years.

Tammy Chu was born in Korea and adopted to the US.  She wrote and directed Searching for Go-Hyang, a personal documentary film screened on PBS and at several film festivals and conferences. Resilience is her first documentary feature film. She is currently living in Korea.

Becky Cioppa is an adult adoptee born in Daegu, South Korea. She is currently a stay at home mom of two young children and a Homeopathic Consultant. She is continuing her education to become a Certified Classical Homeopath and resides in Central Massachusetts.

Martha M. Crawford, LCSW. Martha is an adoptive parent, and a psychotherapist in private practice in New York City. In her past 17 years of practice, she has worked as a clinical consultant for adolescents in foster care and group home settings, with adults who have survived trauma and abuse and bereavement and has been honored to work with adult adoptees and with adoptive parents. She is also the founder of "All Together Now" a multicultural peer/play group for adopted kids, facilitated by adult and adolescent adoptees.

Suzanne D'Aversa is an adoption professional who has been involved in international adoption for nearly thirty years. She is clinical coordinator for a post adoption program and has a private practice.

Patricia Dischler is the author of Because I Loved You: A Birthmother's View of Open Adoption. She is a national speaker at both adoption and early childhood conferences, a columnist for Adoption Today Magazine, and contributing writer for Pieces of Me by EMK Press.

Mark Hagland was born in South Korea in 1960 and adopted in 1961 by American parents of Norwegian and German descent. He grew up in Milwaukee, WI, and attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he earned his BA, and Northwestern University, where he received his master's degree in journalism. He has lived in Chicago since 1981, and has been a working journalist for over 20 years. He has been actively involved in KAAN for several years, in the adult Korean adoptee mini-gatherings, and in writing for Korean Quarterly.

Glen Hilzinger is a forty one year old writer from the Detroit Metro area. He and his wife Jen have three children: Emily born in China in 1995; Ethan born in Korea in 1997, and Elliot born in Michigan in 2006. Glen claims no more adoption expertise than simply enjoying the halo effect of his wife's constant involvement in the adoption and Asian communities around the Detroit area and beyond. However, his kids seem happy at least half the time and Glen likes to take partial credit for that.

Jen Hilzinger and her husband are raising 3 active kids ranging in age from 3-15. Jen has served on numerous adoption, Korean American and Asian American philanthropic and educational organizations including the Council of Asian Pacific Americans and Sae Jong Society of Metro Detroit. Jen co-founded Families with Children from China - Metro Detroit in 1996 after they adopted their daughter from China and is currently on the Families for Children board, a 30+ year old support group for adoptees from Korea and their families and KACE: Korean American Cultural Exchange. Currently she is in graduate school, completing a Master's Level Certificate in teaching English as a Second Language. Jen has been active with KAAN since 2004 when she co-lead the team that brought KAAN to Detroit in 2005. This will be Jen's 3rd year as a co-panelist.

Terry Hong is media arts consultant for the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program at the Smithsonian Institution; she served as the project director for the 2003 Smithsonian Korean American Centennial Commemoration. She created and maintains BookDragon  (http://bookdragon.si.edu/), an extensive book blog for the Smithsonian with over 1500 book reviews. Terry taught for two years in Duke University’s Leadership in the Arts, a performance and public policy program based in New York City. She writes frequently about theater, books, and film. Publication credits include American Theatre, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle, Library Journal, Dallas Morning News, The Bloomsbury Review, AsianWeek, aMagazine: Inside Asian America, among others. Terry co-authored two books, Eastern Standard Time: A Guide to Asian Influence on American Culture from Astro Boy to Zen Buddhism and What Do I Read Next? Multicultural Literature. She holds degrees from Dartmouth College and Yale University.

Amy Horowitz is a certified School Psychologist and finishing her doctorate at St. John's University in New York City. She received her BA in Psychology from Connecticut College in New London Connecticut in 2006. Currently she is an extern at the Albert Ellis Insititute, studying Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) and externing at a school for children with emotional disabilities. Amy was raised by her biological parents alongside two older sisters, one biologically related, and the eldest adopted from South Korea in 1979. Through this experience adoption has become a strong psychological interest of hers, especially the undexplored population of adult adoptees. She is currently working on her dissertation exploring adult adoptee attitudes toward parenthood.

Ms. Hughes graduated from the University of Chicago Law (1989) and was licensed that year to practice in the State of Illinois. Her legal practice focuses primarily on adoption, (working with DCFS, private agency, independent adoption, co-parent adoption and related adoption). In 1994, she co-founded Bridge Communications, Inc. specializing in diversity training, with an emphasis on transracial, international and general adoption education. Bridge Communications was featured in the film Outside looking In: Transracial Adoption in America (2002); and magazine articles in Adoption Today (February/March 2004); and Chicago Magazine (September 1996). She has been quoted regularly in the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times concerning issues of transracial adoption and biracial identity.

Born in Seoul, South Korea, and adopted at four months, Stephen grew up in Texas. He graduated from Baylor University with a BSW, and is a graduate student at Eastern University in Philadelphia, PA, studying International Development at the School of Leadership and Development.

Aieree Jung is the president and founder of International Korean Adoptee Services (InKAS) established in 1999. She completed her master degree at Seoul Woman’s University in Social Work, and has worked at Holt for five years. She has been actively involved in various political discussions and researches internationally regarding the outlook in the extensively developing international Korean adoptee communities. For generations her family is renowned for their active involvement in Korean Social Welfare.

Marlene Kennedy is the mother of two children from Korea.  Her son, David, age 25 came to her in January 1985 and Lauren age 21 joined her family in June 1989. Marlene is an Assistant Director of Education Services at the Brookside School in Cottekill NY, a division of Ulster-Greene ARC serving preschool children with disabilities in intergrated classes and school aged children with disabilites. Marlene and her husband  have been married for almost 35 years and  have lived in the Hudson Valley 36 years. She has been involved with Camp Mu Ji Gai for many years and have participated in many cultural activites.

Mrs. Kim, Hye Kyung, is the director of Post-Adoption Service at Eastern Social Welfare Society in Korea. She has been with them since she began working there as in intake working in April 1983. She has won several awards of recognition including: 1997 Recipient of Department of Health and Ministry Award, 2006/2007/2008 Lecturer of Adoption Education for all adoption agencies nationwide, 2007 Lecturer of Open Adoption for the Adoptive Families, and 2008 Keynote Speaker of Domestic Adoption Promotion Seminar for caseworkers and government.

Korean American Pastor Jacob Kim is English Ministry Pastor of Antioch Church in Philadelphia.

After being adopted to a small, intensely white North Dakota town, Mirim escaped to Korea where she has lived for seven years. She has a diverse background including literature, composition, theology, psychology, sociology, orphanage and single-mother-shelter volunteering, and plain old life experience. She promoted adoptive/birthfamily communication and advocates for adoptees' rights.

Marilyn Lammert is the mother of two adopted young adults, Katie and Adam Carlson. She is a psychotherapist and co-editor of Once They Hear My Name: Korean Adoptees and Their Journeys Toward Identity. Growing up in a liberal white family, she continues to learn about her own racism.

Nayoung Lee is a Korean college student who has worked as volunteer for InKAS

Ms. Lee, Soo Yeon began working for Social Welfare Society in 2001. Since 2005, she has been the Post-Adoption Service Worker for International Adoption

Sungun Lee is the Director of Korean Language Center of New York and is also serving on the Korean Heritage School for Adoptees. Sungun worked as President of the Northeast chapter of the National Association for Korean Schools and as well as being a member of the Board of Directors of both Korea Society of Bilingualism and International Association for Korean Language Education in Seoul, Korea. He published SAT II Korean (1996), SAT II Korean (2001), and Easy to learn Korean I, & II as a co-author.   Sungun Lee was born and raised in Korea. He received a BA and MA in Korean Language and Literature from Yonsei University in Seoul. Sungun was also granted Ph.D in Turkish Language from Ankara University in Ankara, Turkey. In addition he received a Presidential Citation and Medal from the Korean government.

Kimberly McKee was adopted at the age of five months to Western New York from Korea. She is currently enrolled in the PhD American Studies program at King's College London with a focus on the racial identity formation of Korean American adoptees. Her MSc Gender and Social Policy dissertation from the London School of Economics explored the gendering of intercountry adoption and why the Republic of Korea continues its participation.

Monica Mesics is an adult Korean adoptee. She came to the US with her twin sister when she was almost two years old and also has a Korean adopted brother. She longed to reunite with her biological family and eleven years ago; made the journey back to reunite with them. In the last year she has been working with several other adult adoptees to help nurture and grow a local organization, KAAPs (Korean Adoptee Association of Philadelphia). She has her BA in Business Communications, works in commercial real estate, is happily married, and a proud mother.

Jenny Na is a founding member of ASK and currently lives and works in Seoul.

Ms. Nam, Young Mee began working at Social Welfare Society in 1996. Since 2002 she has been Chief of Child Placement Section.

Jacey Norton is the founder of The Korean Adoption Circle, an informational e-mail list about Korean cultural activities in the New England area. She has two Korean born children. Jacey has traveled to Korea several times and has been interested in Korean pop culture for ten years.

Keziah Park is an InKAS volunteer and translator

Katie Mee Joo Putes (Mee Joo Kim) is a Korean adoptee and the current Vice Secretary General at Global Overseas Adoptees’ Link (G.O.A.’L) in Seoul, Korea. In 2006, she co-founded Korean Adoptees of Hawai'i (KAHI). Before moving to Korea, she served as President of KAHI and helped to organize the first Asian Adult Adoptee Gathering and Film Festival in Hawai'i.

Carolyn Scholl lives in San Diego and serves as the President of AKA So Cal. For the past several years Carolyn has been coordinating adult adoptee only programming for KAAN and has let KAAN's adult adoptee only tour to Korea.

Stacy Schroeder is the local coordinator for the KAAN 2010 Conference and has been appointed KAAN’s next national director effective this fall. She has previously served as both a presenter and the speaker coordinator. She and her husband are parents of a twelve-year-old son and a ten-year-old daughter, both of whom were adopted from Korea, and her extended family includes several sisters and a nephew who are Korean adoptees as well. Stacy has made a career of supporting various nonprofits, serving as camp director, youth leader, author, event coordinator, and other positions. In 2007, she coordinated Camp Namu, a Christian camp for Korean adoptees and their families. She is the director of Ta-ri (www.ta-ri.org), a south central Pennsylvania-based group focused on Korean culture and community.

Ms. Seol, Eun Hee has worked for Holt Children’s Services since March 2000 and is currently Korea Case Social Worker of Post-Adoption Service. She is in charge of their Home-Coming Program.

Meghan Shepherd is a Korean adoptee who grew up in Burnsville, Minnesota. She grew up learning about Korea, met her birth family at the age of twelve, at the age of twenty, and went back for a year at the age or twenty six. After a year, she never felt so happy, sad, awkward, confused, or complete in her life.

Senator Shin was born in 1935 and adopted by an American GI during the Korean War. Brought to the United States by his adoptive family, he began his education with a GED and went on to earn a Ph.D. in History from the University of Washington. He retired from teaching at the college level for 31 years, the last 26 years at Shoreline Community College in Seattle. Senator Shin serves as the chair of the International Relations Subcommittee, and as a vice chair of the Economic Development, Trade and Innovation Committee. He also serves on the Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee and the Agriculture and Rural Development Committee. He works indefatigably to promote international trade on behalf of the state of Washington. He is also interested in education and bringing jobs to the state. Senator Shin and his wife Donna have lived in Edmonds for more than 30 years. They have two children and five grandsons.

Kevin Smith was adopted in 1984 at the age of 11 months. He received his BM in classical guitar performance and is currently a medical student in Colorado.

Sara Smith is an adult adoptee and also an adoptive parent. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and three children. Sara is currently studying homeopathy at the Sidewalk School in Boston, Massachusetts.

Joe Soll, LCSW, DAPA is an adoptee, author, psychotherapist, and educator.

Grace Song is a Korean American who was born in Korea. She received a Master's degree in Social Work from Washignton University in St.Louis, MO in 1999. She has 8 years of experiences in post adoption work and ran a number of birthland tours to Korea, Korean culture schools and culture camps. She currently resides in Leesburg, VA with her husband and two children and serves as an executive director for All Services for International Adoptees and Adoptive Families.

Karen Sprouse has visited Korea to do missionary work in a Korean orphanage. She is mentor to Eileen Sullivan-Thompson's daughter from Korea.

Michael was adopted from Korea when he was six. He grew up with his sister Susan who is also an adoptee from Korea and his parents Joyce and Wray. He is a Certified Financial Planner with Merrill Lynch and the President of Ta-Ri, a group celebrating Korean-American culture in Pennsylvania.  He livse in Elverson, Pennsylvania with his wife Lisa and his three children – Hailey, Ella and Andrew.

Kim Stoker is a member of ASK (Adoptee Solidarity Korea). She has been living in Korea for over ten years and is a full-time lecturer at Duksung University in Seoul.

SungHo Suh met Ho Sook in college, fell in love and got married in 1972. Soon Ho Sook became pregnant and delivered a beautiful girl named Hana. All was not well, though, in their marriage. When Hana was four months old, they got divorced. SungHo had the primary responsibility to raise Hana with help from his seventy year old mother who had to move to Seoul from a countryside. Raising a baby for an aging Grandma was difficult because there was no child care center at that time. One day a Holt worker who was a relative suggested adoption. SungHo decided that was the best option for Hana. When SungHo came to the US in 1981, he decided to look for Hana. His prayers were answered and he found Hana in 2003. It was his dream come true.

While raising her daughter from Korea with her husband, Jim, for the past twenty four years, Eileen worked as Program Director for a mental health agency at the same time. She also worked part-time as Adoption Coordinator for Welcome House at Pearl Buck International. For the past five years, she has helped facilitate a monthly Home Study Group for future parents adopting from various countries throughout the world. She and her friend Korea Karen Sprouse have visited Korea together with their families and have also done missionary work in a Korean orphanage. They are returning this February to work with some homeless kids in Seoul and plan on bringing two of them to America this summer for a vacation.

Suzanne (Bang Soo Youn) was born in Pyoungtaek, South Korea and adopted when she was six months old through A.A.C. Adoption and Family Network, Inc. She grew up in Denver, Colorado and currently resides in Chicago, IL where she is finishing her Masters in Child Development. She is an active member of the adoption community working with prospective/ newly adoptive parents and young adoptees and their families. In 1999, Suzanne was reunited with her identical twin sister, older brother, and birth parents in Korea whom she remains close with today. Since then, she has also reconnected with her large Korean extended family. Suzanne has been involved with KAAN since 2007, in addition to presenting and participating in other adoption conferences nationwide. Her passion within the adoption community continues to grow daily, not only as a personal journey, but also as a learning experience.

Hana Thomas is an Adult Korean Adoptee, adopted at about age one, who grew up in rural Florida with white parents. She was originally adopted by her father and his first wife. When they divorced and her father remarried her stepmother adopted her from her first adoptive mother. Her birth father found her in 2003. He and her birth mother are no longer together; however both have immigrated from South Korea and live in the United States. Her birth father lives in California and her birth mother lives in New York. She has been able to establish a relationship with both birth parents. Hana has two boys ages thirteen and ten.

Terra Trevor, of Western Band Cherokee ancestry is the author of Pushing up the Sky, published by KAAN. With her husband Gary she raised three children, two of whom were born in Korea. She served as historian for the Friends Of Korea Family Exchange Program, volunteers in the Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers & Storytellers mentoring core, and has been actively involved in KAAN since 1999. Sharing from the perspective of her unique situation as the mother of a daughter adopted in 1987 at age 10 who chose to leave the family after only 8 brief years together, and a son adopted as a baby, who died at age 15 in 1999. Terra has remained active in the adoption community and within the Korean community, even as her own status as an adoptive parent continues to shift and change.

As a seasoned bi-cultural psychologist in Michigan, Dr. Sook Wilkinson has devoted more than 30 years of her professional life to international adoption. She authored Birth is More than Once: The Inner World of Adopted Korean Children and co-edited After the Morning Calm: Reflections of Korean Adoptees. She is the principal editor of Asian Americans in Michigan, to be published by Wayne State University Press. She is the Chairperson of the new Michigan Asian Pacific American Affairs Commission. In 2008, she was selected to receive the Presidential Medal of Honor, given by the President of the Republic of Korea, for her dedication and contribution to the adoption and the Asian American communities.

Jessica Windt, Co-Producer, Resilience was adopted from Korea to the US in 1982. She returned to Korea for the first time in 2005. It was there she met Tammy and came on board to help develop and manage production of Resilience. She now lives in New York City as a freelance researcher/producer.

David Winston was born in Korea in 1984 and adopted by the Winston family in California in 1989. He had a lot of exposure to his Korean heritage while growing up. David graduated from California State University, Chico in Applied Computer Graphics. In 2008 he finished an internship with Radium (a VFX company in San Francisco) and his portfolio can be found at www.winston3d.org. He currently is living and working in Korea.