Ken E. Shin received his doctorate degree in demography from the University of Pennsylvania and began his teaching and research career at the University of South Carolina, Columbia in the spring of 1971. While teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in demography, he participated in developing the undergraduate sociology curriculum, in which demography was designated as one of three core areas.

He has chaired twenty-four masters thesis and three Ph.D. dissertation committees over the years. His areas of research interests have included the interregional migration of the African-American population in the United States, Korean-American communities, and the political demography of Korea. He has published more than sixty research papers in refereed journals including Demography, Social Forces, The International Migration Review, Social Science Quarterly, Sociological Forum, Behavioral Science, Journal of Gerontology, Social Science and Medicine, Social Biology, Journal of Black Studies, Asian Survey, Journal of East Asian Studies, East Asia: An International Quarterly, Rural Sociology, Sociological Analysis, Sociology and Social Research, and Journal of Sport and Social Issues.

He has served in the following officer positions: Co-Editor, Development and Society; Deputy-Editor, Journal of Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior; President of the Korean American Professors Association; Vice President, Southern Demographic Association; board member, Asian American Section, American Sociological Association; Vice President, International Council for Korean Studies; Chairman, Korean American Committee on the U.S. Census 2000 Partnership. He has received service merit awards from the President of the Republic of Korea for his contributions to the Advisory Council on Democratic and Peaceful Unification.             

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