Expert Bio

Kayla T. Orta is the Senior Associate at the Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy. Former US Department of Defense NSEP Boren Scholar to South Korea, her expertise lies in US-Indo-Pacific and US-Korean foreign relations, especially at the intersection of security and technology policy (i.e. nonproliferation, nuclear diplomacy, and civil nuclear energy markets). 

In her role at the Wilson Center, she oversees the Korea Center’s programmatic and strategic engagement, expanding conversations on US-Korean cooperation on security, trade, technology, and energy. Professionally fluent in Korean, she manages the KF Junior Scholar Program and the 2024 NextGen US-ROK Leadership initiative. She also served as Project Manager for the Wilson Center’s 2023 Commission on US-ROK-Japan Trilateral Relations. Her first book titled, Avoiding Meltdowns & Blackouts: Confidence-building in Inter-Korean Engagement on Nuclear Safety and Energy Development (Wilson Center, 2023), features insights from US and South Korean nuclear policy experts. 

Prior to pursing her master’s degree in Seoul, South Korea, she worked in the History and Public Policy Program at the Wilson Center, spearheading research for the North Korea International Documentation Project (NKIDP). Throughout her career, she has held a variety of fellowships in the United States and South Korea, including the Kathryn Davis Peace Fellowship (2018), ROK Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2020), Nuclear Nonproliferation Education and Research Center at KAIST (2021), and East-West Center’s Consortium on ROK-US and Indo-Pacific region (2023). Her commentary has been featured in major media outlets including BBC, France24, Radio Free Asia (RFA), and The Diplomat. 

She holds a B.A. in International Affairs and Foreign Languages and an M.A. in International Studies from Seoul National University. Her M.A. thesis (in Korean) centered on analysis of U.S. and South Korean archival documents from the 1994 North Korean Nuclear Crisis.