Prof. Choe earned her PhD from Pennsylvania State University in 2012 and spent a decade working in the UK before joining Dalarna University. She contributes to the university's internationalisation and research profile with her extensive international networks and research leadership.
She has taught across the US, China, the UK and now Sweden, adapting her teaching to different academic cultures and student expectations. Drawing on 15 years of international research experience across the US, the UK, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and South Korea, she brings this global perspective directly into her teaching. She believes in real-world connections for teaching and inspiring students, and has developed consultancy projects for students in the UK. At Dalarna University, in collaboration with the Mine Museum in Falun, her master's students work as consultants, solving the museum's real-world challenges as a class project on the sustainability and resilience course, pitching their solutions to museum management. Looking ahead, she plans to develop more collaborative assessments between her courses and local businesses.
Her teaching also extends to PhD education and master's thesis courses, where she brings creative approaches to research supervision and workshops.
Prof Choe's research centers on pilgrimage, spiritual well-being, wellness tourism and social sustainability, with a particular focus on the well-being of marginalised communities. Her work has been published in leading international journals, including the Journal of Development Studies , and she has secured research funding, with colleagues, from bodies such as the British Academy. She has organised international conferences and special issues, and edited books. She serves as Associate Editor of Tourism Geographies and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Her international engagement includes a Visiting Professorship at Hue University, Vietnam, and keynote addresses at academic and industry conferences across Europe and Asia.
To broaden the reach and impact of her research, she engages regularly with the media. Her work has been featured on BBC Radio Scotland and The Conversation UK . She often works with local councils and community organisations, and co-founded the Refugee and Migrant Leisure Network in Southern England with local community partners. She also collaborates with charities such as the British Pilgrimage Trust.
She currently supervises, and has previously supervised, doctoral researchers based in the UK, New Zealand and Vietnam, and has acted as external examiner or opponent for PhD candidates in the UK, Finland and Spain. She contributes to a newly launched doctoral programme in the School of Culture and Society at Dalarna University, and welcomes inquiries from prospective PhD students.