Sarah Cho, University of Texas Permian Basin assistant professor of communication, pays close attention to how people of different cultures interact with each other and the words they use.
“The core idea is kind of us and them all the time and me and others. Because I study communication, I always look into the languages we speak so how that kind of word choice represents how I separate me from others, or others from me. It is like in-group, out-group separation. I think that is the … core idea of intercultural communication and actually all of the social sciences,” Cho said.
Cho recently won the 2022 La Mancha Society Golden Windmill Award. It is meant to encourage junior faculty to keep doing their work. She turned in her current publications and presentations and her future research plan.
Rachel Harlow, associate professor in the Department of Communication, said she is very excited and happy for Cho.
“She’s doing fascinating research, and I’m so very pleased that the Golden Windmill Society is enabling her to continue it. In addition, she is a great teacher, a valued colleague, and someone I am proud to know,” Rachel Harlow said.
Harlow’s husband, William, who is a professor and Communication Department Chair, said Cho is an outstanding instructor who consistently receives high evaluations from her students and peers.
“She is active in research and has taken a leading role in the International Communication Association. This summer, she will be traveling to Korea to conduct additional research. We are proud to have her as part of our program and I am thrilled that such a talented educator has received this award,” William Harlow said.
Now in her third year at UTPB, Cho is originally from South Korea. She earned her bachelor’s degree in education there; a master’s degree in communications from the State University of New York at Albany and her doctorate in communications from University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
The award comes with a $2,000 research grant that she can use for her future fieldwork.
Currently, Cho is working on romantic relationships of North Korean refugee women and South Koreans’ notions of North Korean women and their gender identity. She is studying North Korean women who have settled in South Korean society. She said there is a matchmaking industry in South Korea to pair South Korean men with North Korean women.
Cho said South Koreans look down on North Koreans because of economics. The North Korean women rarely have family in South Korea and it’s harder for them to reach out to family in the North.
Before moving to the United States, Cho worked as a book editor in South Korea, planning, designing, producing and editing books on social science.
“I just automatically fell in love with communication, political science, sociology, linguistics … I studied communication in South Korea first. I went to (a) professional school at night after work, and then I found … this is really interesting. I can just go back to school and start learning something new. I did and then came to the states 10 years ago,” Cho said.
She began looking for jobs during the pandemic as she was about to finish her PhD. Cho did her best to try and find jobs, but it was difficult.
“I got some offers from other universities, but I found UTPB was the best place to work because I love teaching and I really wanted to work in Texas area,” Cho said.
She visited Dallas for a conference while working on her doctorate. At the time, Cho was living in Worcester, Mass., outside of Boston.
”I loved the size of the food,” Cho said.
”I was pregnant at that moment. This was kind of heaven for me. I was a graduate student, so I was kind of hungry and nothing was affordable,” she added.
While working on her master’s degree, Cho was living in Troy, N.Y., and working at a beauty supply store that sold haircare items for African American women. Those stores are owned by Korean Americans.
“In Albany, there are tons of different beauty supply stores owned by Koreans and I worked for one of the owners in Troy. That was kind of a fascinating experience for me to learn about … intercultural communication, like between Korean Americans and Black Americans,” Cho said.
Cho and her husband, Juheon Lee, have a 5-year-old son. Lee is a professor at Midwestern State University teaching political science.
