Jeongin Lee works at the intersection of sonic practice, embodied performance, and feminist inquiry, exploring how listening mediates political subjectivity, memory, and everyday life. Drawing on ethnomusicology and performance studies, her research attends to the relational, affective, and sensory dimensions of sonic experience in militarized and socially contested spaces. 

Her current book project investigates the acoustic and affective environments of the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), theorizing listening as a mode of witnessing, refusal, and attunement to histories of violence. Engaging feminist theory, trauma studies, and sound studies, she traces how sonic practices – from military loudspeakers to resonant silences – mediate collective memory, contested borders, and the lingering afterlives of the Korean War. Her broader research encompasses feminist activism in South Korea, sonic cultures shaped by U.S. military presence, and performance practices that engage aging, memory, and marginality across both local and diasporic communities, with particular attention to traditional and popular musical expressions of identity.

She received her PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Texas at Austin, an M.A. in performance studies from Texas A&M University, and a B.A. in music from Ewha Womans University in Seoul. Her work has been recognized with the Vida Chenoweth Prize, an Honorable Mention for the Seeger Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology, and the Martin Hatch Prize from the Society for Asian Music.